


cross my heart, pretty darlin’, over you

by kattyshack



Series: come on, now, try and understand / the way i feel when i’m in your hands [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - No Zombies, Awkward Flirting, Babysitting, Demisexuality, Developing Relationship, Dream Sex, Driving, F/M, Falling In Love, Fantasizing, Fluff, Introspection, Making Out, May/December Relationship, Older Man/Younger Woman, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Secret Crush, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-08-20 11:23:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 48,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20227051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: There’s a lot wrong with the notion that Daryl might have a thing for the local babysitter — least of all that it’s a goddamncliché— but as Beth Greene got older, Daryl had got a whole lot less wiser, and he’d never been all that fuckin’ clever to begin with, had he?(work + chapter titles by bruce springsteen)





	1. so fine but so out of reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gutsforgarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/gifts).

> a/n: just a little ditty i’ll be adding to whenever the mood strikes. i’ve got some plans for it, but for the most part we’re looking at some lighthearted romance because frankly i have enough problems and now i wanna have some fun

It had taken a good long while, but by now Daryl’s used to walkin’ through Rick’s front door without so much as knocking first. He wouldn’t say he feels like he belongs there or nothin’ like that — ain’t never felt like he belongs much of anywhere, and he’s too old to change — but eventually he’d got sick of Rick moanin’ because he was too busy changing Judith or gettin’ on Carl about his chores or some other suburban dad shit to answer the door. Easier just to walk on in.

He’s met with the smell of knock-off lemon Pledge and the sounds of some baking show on TV in the den halfway down the hall. Daryl frowns. Rick’s cruiser’s in the drive but lemon and baking means he’s not the adult on duty today, and if Daryl had known that he would have waited to drop by. He’s of a mind to leave the way he came, but Beth’s already poked her head out the open archway to the kitchen and now he’s fuckin’ stuck here.

“Howdy, Mr. Dixon,” she chirps, all sunshine and toothy smile and, yeah, now Daryl’s not about to go anywhere and he’s kinda pissed about it.

He grunts a greeting in response, then ducks into the den so she doesn’t make him talk any more than that.

Carl’s the one who’s got the baking show on. Always does, when Beth’s around. Rick reckons his kid’s got a little crush on the babysitter or somethin’. Not that Daryl’s ever been any good with girls, but honestly he doesn’t think Carl’s plan is the worst he’s heard. Better than anything Merle’s ever done, and he’s got women on him like flies on honey, and there ain’t nothin’ _sweet_ about Merle.

“‘Lo, Daryl,” Carl says from his slouch on the sofa.

“How’s it goin’, kid?” Daryl sniffs, swipes a hand over his mouth. “Your dad not around?”

“Workin’. Went in with Michonne today.”

That explains the cruiser in the drive, then. Daryl can’t really kick his ass for that — couldn’t regardless, anyway, because that would mean admitting he doesn’t want to be alone with the fucking babysitter and isn’t _that_ just a whole can of worms he doesn’t want to think about, let alone open. He could say it’s because Beth’s chatty and he never knows what the hell to say back to her, because nobody would question his discomfort there, but he anxiously assumes that Rick’ll know better ‘cause Rick knows _him_ better. Can read him like a damn book.

His fingers twitch for a cigarette, but he ain’t about to light up in the house. He’s just gonna have to wait it out.

Judith’s in her playpen, rubbing a stuffed purple hippo against her cheek, eyelids heavy as she nods off. Probably about time for her afternoon nap. Daryl shuffles a hand through her hair. “What’re ya doin’, huh, sweetheart?”

She lifts the toy and gurgles something about “Mistah Bear” before returning it to her cheek.

“‘S a fuckin’ hippo, but alrigh’.”

“Language, Mr. Dixon,” Beth tuts as she sweeps into the den with a spray bottle and rag that’s not looking particularly clean anymore. Rick don’t get around to cleaning much, but even still…

“Ya know Rick don’t like it when ya pick up after ‘im like some sorta maid,” he reminds Beth with the air of a man who doesn’t really give a shit what she does. Which is mostly true but also mostly not, somehow.

She lifts a delicate brow — everything about her’s so damn _delicate_ — but doesn’t stop what she’s doing. For as much as he pretends he doesn’t care what she’s doing, it really doesn’t matter to her what he’s got to say about it.

“Good thing he won’t notice,” she retorts airily, sort of polite like her daddy taught her and sort of friendly like she just naturally is, “now that you’ve tracked all that dirt in ‘cause you couldn’t be bothered to leave your damn shoes at the door.”

“Talkin’ ‘bout _my_ language,” Daryl mutters as he kicks off his work boots. Not that it makes much difference now, his soles pick up all sorts of shit when he’s workin’ at the garage, but he don’t need Beth looking at him any more so he figures he best do as she says.

Beth sticks her tongue out at him. He considers flipping her off, but the last time he did something like that ‘round the kids, Rick didn’t let him live it down for a month, at least. Sometimes Judith still screeches _“motherfucker!”_, albeit a lot more gleefully than Daryl ever did.

So he lets it go and only spares her half a glance before she whisks back into the kitchen, and he flops onto the couch next to Carl to pretend that he gives a shit about whatever the hell _fondant_’s supposed to be.

He never does figure it out — doesn’t pay enough attention to — before the key rattles in the front door and Rick’s footsteps echo, muffled, down the carpeted hallway. He doesn’t shout out a hello, just a “Why’s it smell like lemon?” when he reaches the den.

Daryl jerks his chin in the direction of the kitchen. “Girl’s cleanin’.”

Rick rolls his eyes, good-naturedly but still tired, as he collapses into the armchair. “Beth —”

“Sorry!” she shouts over the sound of running water. “Can’t hear ya, out in a sec!”

“Think she can hear you just fine,” Carl says.

“Yeah?” Rick chucks a throw pillow at his son. “Maybe you shoulda been the one cleaning up after yourself, huh? Go do your homework.”

The tips of his ears burning red, Carl relents with nothing but a mumbled and only slightly resentful “Yes, sir,” before he pushes himself up from the couch and trudges upstairs to his bedroom. He shouts a goodbye to Beth, who shouts one back. The water’s turned off to be replaced with the sounds of opening cabinets and the clink of dishes, Judith’s steady breathing as she naps, Mister Bear tucked beneath her chin, and Rick switches the TV to a football game that’s just barely more interesting than the baking show. Daryl’s more preoccupied with the empty doorway, anyhow. His fingers twitch again.

“Somethin’ wrong with your car?” he asks Rick, more to distract himself than anything.

“Huh? No, nothing. Spent all day doin’ paperwork, didn’t see the sense in driving in since Michonne offered me a ride.”

“Uh-huh.” Daryl snorts.

“Fuck off, man,” Rick says, just as good-naturedly and a lot less tired now.

Daryl doesn’t say another word about it. It’s been a couple of years since Lori passed; if Rick’s met someone, well, good for him. It’s not really Daryl’s business, so long as the woman’s good to the kids, and Michonne always has been. His little “Uh-huh” is as much as he’s gonna bring it up.

Beth swings back into the room a few minutes’ of silence later, backpack slung over her shoulder and the jangle of pretty bracelets on her left wrist makin’ their usual racket as she wriggles two beer bottles between her fingers.

“You even old ‘nough to be carryin’ that, girl?” Daryl wants to know, even though he _knows_, perfectly (painfully) well, how old she is.

“Just not as old as you, is all.” She winks, tosses one to Rick and the other to him, both of them catching the bottles with deft, almost synchronized reflexes.

Daryl huffs, mutters a “Smartass,” and makes her smile as he picks at the label.

It’s a fleeting one, that smile — at least, it’s not just for him anymore when she waves and heads for the door, chattering about how she’s gotta run, she’s meeting Maggie for dinner in an hour, and then she shouts “See y’all tomorrow!” over her shoulder as she goes. The front door clicks shut and the jangle of her pretty bracelets can no longer be heard over the noise of the TV, and the flush that had crept up the back of Daryl’s neck since he got here is finally, mercifully, subsiding.

He pops the tab on his beer and resolves not to think about it anymore.

He almost immediately fails.

“What a’you even need that babysitter for now, anyhow?” he asks, like he’s annoyed that Beth one-upped him before she left, as if she’s not always one-upping him, leaving him too dumb to think up anything else to say to her. “Ain’t Carl too old for all that?”

Rick gives him a funny look. “He’s thirteen.”

“Hmph.”

“Judith’s two.”

Can’t argue that. Daryl takes a pull of beer and says “Hmph” again.

“You got a problem with Beth?”

He shrugs, picks at the label some more, keeping his eyes trained on either that or the TV to avoid looking Rick in the eye. “Jus’ don’ see what y’ need her for no more.”

“You wanna watch my kids while I’m at work?”

“Shit, no. I got work too.”

“And Beth don’t,” Rick points out. “Nothing but the farm, anyway, and Hershel doesn’t keep his kids locked up there or nothing. You know she’s a good kid. Pretty much family at this point.” He shrugs, takes a sip of his own beer. “Why’d I get rid of her?”

“Dunno.” And he doesn’t know, truly, doesn’t even know why he brought it up. He just can’t stop fucking thinking about it — alright, about _her_, fuck, but how did this even happen? — and now he’s gone and said it. “Jus’ sayin’.”

“Sayin’ what?”

“Nothin’.” Daryl sighs, gruff and low and wishing he could’ve swallowed his words like he does with literally everything else. “Forget it.”

Rick’s always been able to see right through him, though. _Can read me like a damn book, ‘member?_ Man’s able to see right through most anybody, which Daryl guesses is a good trick up your sleeve when you’re a cop and all, but it’s never done him much in the way of favors.

Especially now.

Especially when Rick groans and says, “Aw, Christ, Daryl,” like he knows every one of the man’s dirty little secrets that he never fucking asked for, but Daryl just couldn’t keep them to himself for fuck knows what reason, so here they are. And, considering that all those dirty little secrets happen to be dirty little thoughts about Beth Greene, well… Daryl s’poses Rick does know them all now, or as good as.

He doesn’t say anything to his friend’s curse, though. Doesn’t trust himself to. So he takes another swig of his beer to make sure that he doesn’t so much as bother to try. Which he really should’ve goddamn done in the first place, but too late for that now, innit?

“I know she’s pretty, man,” Rick says because he can’t just leave well enough alone, “but Christ.”

Daryl tries to clear his throat, but it’s all sandpaper. “Said that already.”

“S’cuse me.” Daryl won’t look at him, but he can hear another eye-roll in his voice. Asshole. “Just found out you got a crush on my babysitter, so I’m a little shook up here.”

“Shut the hell up,” he retorts with no real bite, because he’s just resigned to this now, he did it to himself and now all he can do is backtrack and deny it. “Don’t know what y’r talkin’ ‘bout.”

But Rick sure as hell isn’t about to be thrown off now. “How long’s this been going on?”

Daryl doesn’t answer that, either. Not sure he even _has_ an answer to that. Shit crept up on him, took him by surprise. All he can say is that it hasn’t been that long — definitely not before she turned eighteen, he doesn’t think, but she’s only nineteen now and frankly it’s no better that he feels this way now than it woulda been if he felt like this when she was sixteen, probably. She’s still a kid, he’s always seen her as a kid, and his friend’s kid, at that.

He’d met Hershel Greene a few years back, when Daryl played chaperone to Merle at AA meetings (which, in the end, had gone out the damn window because Merle decided he didn’t want to quit drinking, after all, but he’d compromised and gone to NA instead. Truth of it is, Daryl doesn’t think that’s a compromise, exactly, but the narcotics were a more pressing issue, anyway, and at this point Daryl would take what he could get from his brother).

He kept in touch with Hershel, lent a hand at the farm whenever he could. The man was a good one. Daryl hadn’t known many good men in his life and he wasn’t about to risk his relationship with any of them — least of all over Hershel’s daughter, for chrissakes.

So does it matter, really, “how long”? It could go on forever and Daryl would never do anything about it, for a whole mess of reasons — _she’s too young she’s Hershel’s kid what the hell do I know ‘bout bein’ with anybody anyway who says she’d even want that hell why do I even want that I dunno what the hell I want but it shouldn’t be her_ — he repeats to himself whenever the thought dares to cross his mind. It dares a whole awful lot, but he doesn’t know when it all started.

Maybe that’s something he needs to think about.

Not right now, fuckin’ obviously, not when Rick’s giving him the third degree and Daryl would rather flip out his lighter not for a cigarette this time but to just set _himself_ on fire to avoid the rest of it.

He should not be this messed up over a goddamn kid.

But he’ll think about that later. Or maybe he won’t. He’d rather not. But since when does anybody care what he wants, least of all his own damn self?

When he continues on not answering his question, Rick snorts. Like he thinks it’s actually kinda funny or some bullshit like that. “I’d sooner arrest you than fire her, y’know.”

“Still don’t know what y’r yammerin’ on ‘bout.”

“Just gonna play dumb now, huh?”

“Ain’t playin’ nothin’.”

Rick smirks. Daryl catches the quirk out of the corner of his eye, and abandons the label to chew on his thumbnail instead. “She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

“Don’t matter,” Daryl grumbles. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

“You thinkin’ about it?”

He clears his throat. Doesn’t work any better this time than it did the last he tried. “Nah.”

That gets a full fuckin’ laugh out of Rick. He shakes his head, lifts his bottle to his lips, and turns back to the game. “Lying through your damn teeth, man.”

He knows Daryl’s not gonna try anything, knows that he’s not that type of guy. It’s why he can laugh about it like he is, the way that makes Daryl grit his teeth and set his jaw, makes the beer taste at once flat and too frothy down his throat, but it’s better than if Rick took this seriously. Because if that’s how it’d be, then Daryl would have a lot more thinking to do.

But he doesn’t, he can let those thoughts lay as dormant as he can make them. He’s not sure whether he’ll think on them when he’s alone later, but fuck if he can’t at least try to ignore it. Because far as Rick can tell, Daryl just thinks the girl’s pretty and that’s innocent enough. Not even just that, but it’s obvious fact, a foregone conclusion — Beth Greene is a pretty girl, and Daryl’s a decent enough man not to do anything about it.

At least. that’s what Daryl assumes Rick thinks. It’s what he’s been telling himself to shake off those errant thoughts that’ve been creeping into his head over the past few months or whenever it’d been since this all started, since it stirred, since Beth started getting older and he started wondering things — things she’ll never be old enough for him to think about her, but he can’t control it all the goddamn time, can he? Shit happens and sometimes he _wonders_.

And then Rick’s gotta go and open his mouth again, and Daryl’s got to think about all this shit whether he wants to or not. And he fucking _does_ _not_.

“Might not be the worst thing in the world if you did, though,” Rick says, thoughtful like. He’s still looking at the TV and for a moment Daryl thinks he must’ve imagined what he said, but then — “Did somethin’ about Beth, I mean. Kinda weird, I guess, but… I dunno. I know you’re not some creep just looking to — y’know, get his rocks off with some young girl.” He tilts his head. “Just Beth, right?”

Daryl chews a little harder on his thumbnail. “Not tryna _get my rocks off_ with nobody,” he mumbles, the flush on his neck creeping up again. He fuckin’ hates talking about this shit.

Rick nods. “Well, see, that’s what I mean. You’re not the worst sorta guy who’s ever had his eye on Beth.”

“Fuckin’... thanks?” What else is he supposed to say to that? “Don’t got my eye on her, neither. Jus’...” Why is he still talking? He curls his fingers into the thigh of his jeans and takes a long swallow of beer. “Dunno.”

_Dunno. _It’s fucking useless but still just about the most honest thing he’s said all damn day. Because he doesn’t know — not when or why or how or even what, really, this thing he’s feeling is. He probably could know if he gave it more attention than telling himself all the reasons why he can’t, but another thing he doesn’t know is if he even _wants_ to know. How’d that help any, if he knew any of that?

Christ, he does not want to be thinking about this.

Daryl finishes off his beer and taps restless fingers against the half pack of cigarettes squashed into his front pocket, and stews in the too little, too late, self-awareness that he never should’ve opened his damn stupid mouth in the first place.


	2. you can look but you better not touch, boy

Telling Rick about this thing he’s got for Beth… It was a goddamn mistake. Daryl knew it would be. It’s one of the reasons why he hadn’t said anything ‘til all of a sudden he couldn’t stop himself from saying everything, and even then he hadn’t said much but it was still _enough_, and enough was too fucking much.

If he believed in shit like divine intervention or the universe or some other crap like that, he’d say that’s why this is happening — that he’d spoken this shit into existence and now it’s coming back to bite him in the ass.

He doesn’t believe in any of that, though. So he’s only got his own dumbass self to blame.

Or, his own dumbass self and the sweltering Georgia summer. He could deal with the heat — it’s just fuckin’ weather, ain’t it? — but what he can’t handle is Beth dressed… like that.

It shouldn’t bother him, he shouldn’t care; he’s spent the better part of his life not noticing and not caring about shit like that, he’s not Merle, for chrissakes. He can look at a woman without leering at her. He doesn’t _leer_. Not even at Beth, come to it, but seein’ her in those cutoffs and loose, thin-strapped tops that he swears are gettin’ smaller every day… Fuck, it does something to him. He don’t know what, but it makes his skin hotter than a whole afternoon in the sun. Her hair gets all humid-air frizzy and the ends of her ponytail stick to her neck, her shoulders, any stretch of sweat-slicked skin it can reach, and that — that does something to him, too. Makes him look at her a little bit longer when he’s already lookin’ too much as it is.

Rick hasn’t said anything else about it, but he still _knows_ now, and Daryl feels like the man is humoring him same as he does his own son. Fuck, Daryl’s got the same crush (god damn it, but who came up with that word, anyway?) as a thirteen-year-old. That should be a wake-up call or somethin’, shouldn’t it? But it don’t make no difference. He feels like a fucking idiot any which way.

He’s somehow even more pissed about it all than he had been before he opened his damn mouth. Just goes to show he needs to leave well enough alone, keep shit to himself. If he’d’ve done that, it probably would’ve saved him the black eye he gave himself at the shop — too distracted thinkin’ about the curve of Beth’s hip bone disappearing into her low-slung shorts that morning when he’d stopped by Rick’s for coffee (because he’ll take a free cup of black rather than pay six bucks for some shit he can’t pronounce at Starbucks), and he’d dropped a fuckin’ wrench on his face checkin’ the underside of an old Chevy that wasn’t even worth the trouble to start with.

Ain’t no wonder why he’s pissed.

When Merle sees him, the bastard hoots with laughter. “_Hoooo-eeeee_, little brother, who gave you that shiner, huh?”

Like hell is Daryl gonna give his brother even a hint of what’s goin’ on in his head. Merle’d have a damn field day, tell him to _go for it, Darylina, do you some good to get some pussy_, and Daryl doesn’t want to hear it. So he just flips him off instead.

A whole lotta good that does him, when his phone buzzes and Beth’s picture lights up the screen.

(It’d been her and Carl who set up his phone for him — they put all sorts of goofy shit on there, pictures of the half-dozen people in his contacts because he don’t talk to more than that if he can help it. And he never talks to Beth on the phone, what the hell’s she calling him for?)

Merle’s eyes light up brighter than the phone screen. “Well well _well_, whadda we got here? Where’d you find a fine piece a tail like that, little brother?”

Daryl frowns, mostly at Merle but his eyes are glued to his phone vibrating on the kitchen counter. “Ain’t no piece a tail, that’s Hershel’s kid.”

“Stickin’ it to the farmer’s daughter, huh? Didn’t know ya had it in ya.”

“Shut the fuck up, Merle.” Daryl snatches the phone in the middle of its last ring and answers it with a short “Yeah?”

“That how you answer the phone, really?” Beth says without the barest skip in her step, like she was just expecting him to pick up that way. Her voice drops to a deep timbre and a lousy impersonation of him, though obviously it’s _supposed_ to be him. “‘Yeah?’”

He knows better than to smile, ‘specially with Merle watching, but his lips don’t — he feels it when they twitch up. God damn it.

“Daddy wants to know if you can come by sometime,” Beth continues, unbothered by his silence. Probably makes it easier for her to talk as much as she feels like, which is usually a lot. “Today if you can. Otis’ knee gave out and he says he can still work on it, but Daddy told him to rest up, so we could use an extra pair of hands if you’ve got time.”

“Yeah, I got time.” Deliberately, Daryl doesn’t look at Merle. He prods at the black-and-blue under his eye. “What’re you callin’ me for? Ain’t your daddy home?” If he’s going over to the farm, Christ, please let Hershel be there, too.

“He is.” A beat. “I just offered to call, that’s all.”

Daryl frowns again. “What for?”

“I just did.” He can almost hear the shrug in her reply, like it’s no big deal, but… Well, she’s talking again before he can think too much on it. “So you comin’?”

“Yeah,” he mutters. How many times can he say the same word in one stilted conversation? “Be over in a bit.”

When he hangs up, Merle’s laughing again — that short gruff bark that almost always ends in a hack because he smokes even more than Daryl does. “Must be some good pussy fer y’ to be at her beck ‘n’ call like that, eh?”

“Shut the fuck up, Merle,” Daryl says again, because that’s the most he can usually say to his brother. He grabs a set of keys from the hook by the door. “I’m takin’ your bike.”

“How come?” Merle wants to know, but he’s having too good a time at Daryl’s expense to complain. “Wanna give Daddy’s little girl a ride, d’ya?”

“‘Cause y’r pissin’ me off, s’why.”

He slams the door shut on all his brother’s hootin’ and hollerin’. Ain’t nothing more to say or do but that. Merle’s not gonna let this one go — never lets anything go, and if Daryl weren’t already in a world of trouble here, Merle’d make sure to stir it up for him. But Daryl had done this to himself and he knows that; Merle’s just gonna make it worse.

He lets it go for now, lets himself think about nothing at all while he takes the drive to the farm, wind rushing in his ears so that it drowns out anything else that tries to sneak in. Daryl’s always been good at drowning things out — it was a means to survival, more or less — but it’s been different since Beth got in his head; she wasn’t somethin’ he could shake off so easily. He still doesn’t know why and he doesn’t want to examine it, not yet. He’s hoping he’ll get over it before he has to give himself a reason why it’s alright. Because it’s not alright.

It’s something like a miracle when he makes it to the Greenes’ farm without skidding on the road, at least.

Beth in a little polka-dot dress waiting for him on the front porch, on the other hand, is either a miracle or a curse. He doesn’t know which. Daryl’s just relieved he manages to park the bike before he has to really look at her without an excuse not to.

Soon as he removes his helmet, she’s on her feet asking him, “Are you alright? What happened to your eye?”

Right. That. Daryl swings off the bike. “Dropped somethin’ at the shop.”

“On your _face_?”

He scowls. “Fuckin’ looks that way, don’t it?”

“Did you ice it?”

“What are’y, my doctor?”

A frown graces Beth’s pretty pink mouth — _shit_ — as he makes his way over to her, because behind her’s the front door and that’s where he needs to get. In the house, find Hershel, and outta the house again to go do whatever it is that Hershel needs doin’. That’s why he’s here, to help out a friend, and ogling a friend’s pretty daughter ain’t helpin’ nobody at all.

“Lemme put somethin’ on it,” she insists. He doesn’t know how such a tiny thing manages to stand so that her entire body’s blocking his way up the porch steps, but she does it. “We got frozen peas.”

“M’fine, Greene,” he brushes her off, so effortlessly that it convinces her to move out of his way. “Rode the bike here and ev’rything.”

“Yeah.” She spares it a look, somethin’ wistful. “It’s nice.”

“‘S Merle’s.”

“Still nice.” He catches her shrug out of the corner of his eye, with his hand on the doorknob and mind set on anything that’ll distract him from her. “Wanna take me for a ride sometime?”

Maybe it’s just Merle’s voice stuck in his head, but Daryl turns to look at her so fast his neck cricks. “The hell you say t’ me?”

Beth frowns again, just a little bit, brow furrowed in confusion as she repeats herself. “You got a motorcycle. Would ya take me out on it?”

Oh. So that’s what she meant. The realization makes Daryl snort.

“Hell no, girl. Look like one strong breeze’d knock y’ flat on ya skinny ass.” He jerks his chin at her, like that says it all. “Ain’t takin’ y’ out on no bike.”

She huffs, crosses her arms. The movement draws Daryl’s gaze to the hollow at the base of her throat. He swallows and looks back to the door jamb, even as she picks up talkin’ again.

“I ain’t been hauling milk pails and hay bales on my daddy’s farm since I was old enough to walk just for some big ol’ grump to tell me my ass’s too skinny to ride a motorbike.”

“Ain’t no _grump_,” he mutters. Got nothin’ else to say, but that’s better than nothing at all.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Dixon.” She’s laughing at him, he can almost hear it, but it’s not so bad as when Merle does it. Nah, Beth’s laugh sings like windchimes and there’s somethin’ nice about that.

She follows behind as he makes his way inside. The house ain’t much cooler than the heavy humid air outside, but at least it’s shady. Portable fans whir from the end of just about every hallway, but otherwise it’s quiet. Daryl’s stomach sinks at how quiet it is, like nobody’s home and, god damn it, but he needs somebody else to be home.

“Thought y’ said y’r daddy was around?” Let someone be here, for fuck’s sake. For the first time in… ever, Daryl prays that Maggie Greene is in the house, the barn, the fields, somewhere, because she’d cut off his balls if she caught him lookin’ at her sister twice the way he has been, and that’s just the sort of discouragement Daryl needs right now.

He can’t be fuckin’ alone with her, alright? He’s not gonna do anything but panic something fierce deep in his gut, but still.

“He’ll be back soon,” Beth tells him when they make it into the kitchen, just as empty as the rest of the house. She hops up on the island as he leans on the counter across from her, next to the coffee pot and he’s twitching like he’s high on caffeine. “Took Otis to the doctor’s, ‘cause he kept sayin’ he could work on his bad knee and Daddy figured they’d get a second opinion, but only ‘cause Daddy knows he’s right and Otis is wrong.”

That gets another snort out of Daryl, even as Beth swings her bare legs in front of him like she don’t know what she’s doing and she probably doesn’t. He chews on his thumbnail, and shoves the rest of it to the back of his mind where he keeps all the shit he doesn’t need to be thinking about, and instead focuses on all those less dangerous things.

That sounds like Hershel, he thinks, so forcefully that Beth’s bare knees are such an obvious afterthought that they’re practically a forethought no matter what he tries to tell himself.

God damn it.

“What’re you dressed like that for? You not gonna help me out?” Daryl says, and hates himself for it. If he was gonna draw attention to the fact that she’s drawn his attention at all, he should’ve said something better — somethin’ about how nice she looks. But he doesn’t fuckin’ know how to say that.

Beth smiles, though, ‘cause she’s always smilin’, and sometimes Daryl wonders if she means it even half the time. He’ll never ask her but he wonders it for himself all the same.

“Just got home a little bit before I called you,” she explains. “Went out with some friends earlier. Just coffee, y’know? Only I haven’t done anything just to do it in awhile, so I kinda wanted to dress up nice. Stupid, I guess,” she adds, lookin’ at her own knees now, the way Daryl’s been, but she doesn’t look as happy about it as he deep down feels (shouldn’t feel, but does, and it’s not like anybody has to know so long as he shuts the fuck about it).

Daryl shrugs. “Ain’t stupid.”

He should say something better, something more, but what the hell does he know?

“Nah, it’s silly.” Beth tucks a corner of her mouth between her teeth and chews, the way Daryl does when he gnaws at a fingernail. He feels a tug in his gut, in his hands, like he wants to touch her, but fuck no he doesn’t actually do it. “Just that…”

She stops, looks at him like maybe she’d expected him to stop her long before this when really it hasn’t been very long at all. Maybe he should have, maybe he shouldn’t’ve commented on her dress in the first place, but it’s been quick learnin’ to know that he can’t stop the words tipping from his tongue when those words are about Beth Greene.

Damn it. He’s gonna have to think about this, ain’t he? He’s gonna need to figure this shit out, or it’s gonna kill him and that’s that.

“You really wanna know why I feel stupid?” she asks, and Daryl feels like he’s been holding his breath waiting for her to say something else.

Not that he’s got anything else to say in response. But lately he thinks he’s just been about waiting for Beth to say anything, on the off-chance that he’ll have something to say back. That’s the thing about this girl — she keeps you on your toes, makes you think about the shit you do long before you’d usually need to think about it. It’s a good thing; Daryl just didn’t know he needed it ‘til she came along,

He shrugs, like none of this matters. “Got nothin' better to do.”

“Really know how to get a girl goin’, don’t you?”

Now isn't _that_ a tricky question? If Daryl didn’t think, the way most people seem to think he doesn't, then he could say the first thing that comes to mind without worrying about it. He could tell her no, he’s not lookin’ to ‘get her going,’ he could mumble and brush it off, he could do all sorts of things.

But he doesn’t wanna lie.

He wants her and he doesn't want her to know it — doesn’t even want to know it himself, but too late for that — but he doesn't want her to second-guess it, either. If that’s something she’d want, anyway, but that seems a pretty far stretch and Daryl’s never been known to use his imagination, so…

Doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

Before he can scramble with how to answer her, Beth’s cheeks flame and she grimaces, embarrassed. “I shouldn't've said it like that. Sorry.”

Daryl coughs. Maybe he meant to say something, but he doesn’t know what it would’ve been.

“Um. Anyway.” Beth knocks her heels against the counter beneath her. “Guess I just wanted to look nice, is all. Without worryin’ about getting hay or spit-up or somethin’ all over me, y’know.”

She toys with the bracelets on her wrist. Daryl watches her fingers twitch and his do, too.

“I better go change,” she breaks the silence before it can get too awkward. Usually Daryl prefers it that way — silent — but there’s somethin’ ain’t right about it when you’re in Beth’s company. She hops off the counter and nearly trods on his toes, they’re that close. Too close. “We gotta muck out the stables. Ain’t really dressed for that.”

Somehow, maybe stupidly, Daryl unsticks his jaw by the time Beth reaches the foot of the stairs. She’s got one hand on the banister when he blurts out — still gruff, still short, but still it _bursts_ like the dumbest fucking thing he’s ever said — “Looks nice, though.” He clears his throat, wipes a hand across his mouth when she looks over her shoulder at him. His fingers curl around the edge of the counter behind him. “Th’ dress.”

Beth blinks at him, but then — she smiles, slow and kinda nervous-like, like she’s surprised. He thinks maybe this smile is for real, though. That’s somethin’. 

“Thanks, Daryl. That’s real sweet.”

“Yeah, well…” He coughs, sniffs. Must sound like he’s getting a damn cold most of the time. “Meet you ousside, then.”

“Sure thing.”

Instead of heading out just yet, though, Daryl watches her take the stairs two at a time up to her bedroom. Watches the swish of her polka-dot skirt ‘round her knees. The bounce of her ponytail, the clack of the beads on her bracelets. All that shit he’s not s’posed to be watching. Part of him still wishes Maggie Greene’d walk through that door and see the way he’s lookin’ at her sister, ‘cause he probably deserves to get his balls cut off by now. Might make him think twice about doin’ it again.

He hears Beth’s door shut upstairs, breathes out like he didn’t know he’d been holding it. Seems he does that a lot where she’s concerned. Girl’s got a way of makin’ him forget himself.

_Jesus._

If he thought his day went from bad to worse when he dropped that wrench, he was all sorts of wrong — ‘cause this day just got a whole lot fuckin’ longer.


	3. to see her you gotta look hard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: life’s pretty much at a record low for me atm so apologies for the delayed update and hopefully i’ll be able to pick up the pace because i don’t have anything else going for me rn anyway!!!!!! *throws sad confetti* but anyway enjoy xx

It’s been a few days since Daryl made it a point to avoid Beth for a little while. He can only go on like he’s been for so long before he needs a damn break.

Not that it matters much, as it turns out. Doesn’t need to see her to think about her. And it makes him feel guilty or wrong or a whole other bunch of things, things Rick shrugged off because it ‘might not be the worst thing in the world.’ Not exactly a green light, but Rick made him feel like it was alright, even when he kept telling himself it wasn’t.

She’s nineteen. Not like it’s illegal or nothin’, but… But, fuck, if that’s the best he can say about it, then he probably shouldn’t be thinking about it at all.

But that’s all he does, is think about it. Think about _her_. It’s gonna drive him fuckin’ crazy.

Maybe that’s just what he needs — a chance to think this through, the way he really didn’t want to, but more and more it’s been lookin’ like he’s got to. Only thing keepin’ him from doing it sooner was his own stubborn ass.

Could be it’s just the wrench he’d taken to the eye, but that afternoon at the farm was… somethin’ else. Daryl can’t explain it, same as how he can’t explain anything where Beth’s concerned. He’s trying to, if only for his own peace of mind (and damn it, but doesn’t he deserve some peace in all this?), but even when he comes up with something that feels like the right answer, he can’t put it into any words that’ll make any kind of sense.

All he knows is, it was somethin’ about Beth Greene in a polka-dot dress that got him thinkin’ how he really ought to think about what he’s been feeling.

And that don’t make no damn sense, neither.

Because it’s got nothing to do with the polka-dot dress, not really. Next thing she was in a T-shirt and jeans, a heavy apron and thick work gloves, shoveling out the stable next to him and still he wanted… something. _Her. _Wanted something more than just wanting.

So he spends the next few days running tired hands over his face and replaying it all in his head — the polka dots, the skip in her step and the swing of her legs, the nerves in her voice, the twitch of her fingers on her bracelets, the nip of her teeth in her bottom lip… How she said a lot like she always says a lot, but how there was more to it that she wouldn’t let on but he _knew_ it was there, he just couldn’t reach it.

Why does he want to reach it so bad?

He doesn’t know. He wants to know.

Not thinking about her — or saying he shouldn’t, or that he wasn’t gonna when he did, anyway — hasn’t helped any. So he thinks about her, purposefully, and tries to come up with when he started to realize he was thinkin’ about her too much in all the ways he shouldn’t.

He remembers when her momma and brother died, in a car wreck that took ‘em all of a sudden, right around the same time Lori passed. Daryl had gone back and forth between the farm and Rick’s, trying to help where he could even though he didn’t even know what to offer. He’d never had many people in his life to give a shit about, but now all the ones he did have were hurtin’ and he didn’t know what to do with all those emotions runnin’ high. Didn’t know what to do with all that cryin’ and prayin’ and everybody’s mood swings. He just made sure they had something to eat and that their cars’ tire pressure was good, because what the hell else was he supposed to do?

He didn’t see much of Beth then. Doesn’t know where she was most of the time. Hershel kept sayin’ she was grieving and never much else, like maybe there was more to it but nothing he was willing to share. It wasn’t Daryl’s business; he didn’t try and find out, because he’s never made it a habit to stick his nose where it don’t belong.

A couple years on, though, and he wonders if he should’ve tried harder. He did what he could for Hershel and Rick and the kids at the time, but people like Maggie and Beth Greene… Well, Maggie had that boyfriend of hers to lean on and Beth was somethin’ like sixteen years old and Daryl never knew what to say to a teenager in the best of circumstances (he’d much rather avoid them altogether because fuckin’ _Christ_), forget about what he could’ve said on the heels of her momma and brother’s funeral. Would’ve taken that tragedy and made her feel worse about it, probably. Not on purpose, but he’s no good with what to say. Look at him now — all that shit’s behind them, more or less, and he still can’t talk to the girl.

He’s gonna have to talk to her, too. Merle’s already on his ass about what a pissy mood he’s been in this week, wants to know_ ‘did that pussy dry up on yeh or somethin’? Getcha panties in a twist?’ _and swear to god, Daryl’s gonna hit him. He’d rather try to talk — and probably fuck it up — to Beth than get into it with his brother.

Thinking about her, avoiding her, trying to talk himself out of it… None of it’s helping; none of it’s doin’ shit at all. Might as well go on and do what he wants for all the good it’s doin’ him, and what he wants is to see her.

It’s fuckin’ stupid but fine, he’ll do it.

Soon as he slides into the driver’s seat of his truck, he texts Rick.

_**DARYL**: Beth at your place?_

_**RICK**: Took the kids to the park.  
What d’you wanna know for? ;)_

_**DARYL**: You for fuckin’ real, man?_

He tosses his phone in the cup holder, can practically hear Rick laughing at him. It’s almost as bad as when Merle does it — worse, even, because Rick actually _knows_ and all Merle does is guess at what Daryl’s problem is. Rick’s got a reason to laugh, and that pisses Daryl off all over again. Not enough to say fuck it and go back into his apartment, but… He starts up the truck and pulls onto the street. _Still._

The drive doesn’t take him as long as he would’ve liked, but it’s not like he needed any extra time to get all up in his own head again so he s’poses it’s for the best.

He sees Carl off a ways, playing basketball with some kids who look about his age. Beth’s got Judith in one of those baby swingsets, Mister Bear the purple hippo takin’ up more room in the thing than Judith is, she’s so tiny.

And now he’s using the damn baby as a distraction. He’s looking at Beth, wants to be looking at Beth, and he’s pretending that it don’t matter. Because if it matters then he’s totally fucked — but he already knows it matters, already knows he’s totally fucked, so he might as well look at her, because that’s what he came here to do in the first place and, fuck, but he can’t keep goni’ back and forth like this or he’ll never get anywhere at all.

He wants to get somewhere. He wants a whole lot, if Beth’s involved, more than he ever thought he could want somethin’. But he’s all wrapped up in her now and god damn it, but he’s gonna figure out why and then maybe he’ll know exactly what to do about it.

Keep his eye on the prize, that’s what it’s all about, and right now the prize is chillin’ the fuck out for five seconds. He could really use it.

Ain’t gonna happen. Beth’s always lookin’ too pretty for it to happen — too pretty and too… somethin’ else. He don’t know what yet. That’s part of the problem, that he don’t fuckin’ know, but part of the solution is figuring it the fuck out and then maybe… Well, _maybe_ is something else he doesn’t know just yet, but he’ll get there. Out of sheer fuckin’ stubbornness, he’ll get there, because he’s _gotta_ know. Sick of not knowin’, sick of what it’s been doing to him —

And Beth’s been doing all sorts of things to him. Even when she’s not around, even when he makes it a point not to be around her, she does somethin’ and he needs to know what it is so that he knows what he’s allowed to do about it.

His tireless stream-of-conscious stops soon as his boots crunch on the mulch that softens the playground, soon as Beth gives a sleepy Judith another push in the swing. Soon as Beth looks up — sees him, smiles, says, “Hey.”

He can’t fucking breathe. “Hi.”

And there Beth is, smilin’ like she’s never had trouble breathing a day in her life. She looks a little confused, like she don’t know why Daryl’s lookin’ like a deer caught in headlights, but she’s too nice to say anything about it. So instead she asks, “Where you been, stranger?” like there’s nothing else hanging in the air between them.

“Workin’. Y’know.” He shrugs, stops short right before he gets to her. Judith’s toes in her little purple sneakers catch him in the thigh, so that he’s separated from Beth by a two-year-old in a swing, so that it’s safe. So that he can be here and it don’t have to mean anything if she don’t want it to.

He gives Judith a push, sending her back to Beth. “Was around, so. Thought I’d give y’all a ride back to Rick’s, ‘f y’ wanted.”

“That’d be real nice,” Beth accepts his offer with a tone of relief he hadn’t been expecting. “Judy’s been kinda fussy today. Figured the park might calm her down, but a good car ride always does the trick.”

“You do the trick alrigh’,” Daryl says, without thinking overmuch about what he’s saying. His brain’s too fried to obsess like he’s been. “Y’r good with her, y’know.”

Judith’s tired eyes flicker and Beth’s cheeks go pink. “She makes it easy, usually.”

“Li’l Asskicker?” Daryl snorts. He pushes at the baby’s foot again, swinging her gently, falling into the rhythm he and Beth have set between them. “Don’t think so, Greene.”

“She’s nappin’ most of the time.”

“Jesus, girl.” He meets her eye, then looks away when he pushes Judith back towards her. “Take the damn compliment, would ya?”

“Didn’t know you gave those out,” Beth says lightly, like it’s nothin’, but the way she looks at him makes him feel like it’s anything but.

Daryl wants it to be anything but. He don’t know how to make it better, but he can make a little effort. Can make it seem like he’s trying without trying too hard. So he tells her — ‘cause he’s already told her once before, so what’s the harm in repeating it now? — “Told y’ tha’ dress was nice.”

“Yeah,” Beth agrees, but he’s avoiding her eye (he can only do so much in one day, okay?), “you did.”

He doesn’t count the seconds or anything like that, but they spend some measure of time in a companionable sort of silence. Daryl’s found pretty much any stretch of quiet to be companionable, so long as the person he’s with (whether accidentally or at the very least _inadvisably_) doesn’t mind shutting the fuck up. Now, Beth usually doesn’t keep her trap closed, but she does now — like she knows it’s what makes Daryl comfortable, and maybe there’s something there that makes her comfortable, too. Like she don’t have to say a word, ‘cause it’s not her responsibility to make him feel like either of them need to say anything. Sometimes Daryl thinks the girl talks just to do it, just to feel useful, but she don’t gotta.

He doesn’t wanna make her feel like she’s gotta do anything she doesn't already want. If that’s what he was about, then he’d be just the kind of guy that shouldn’t be allowed ‘round her. He’d be the kind of guy who wants her for all the wrong reasons, and that’s not what Beth should be after.

He chances another look at her — it’s the only way he can look at her, stealin’ glances like some two-bit thief because she deserves better than that, but it’s all he’s got so he has to hope it’s enough — and he knows all the wrong reasons are there, stewin’ inside’a him, but that’s not all there is.

A sharp inhale cuts through his throat, but he’ll think this through even if it kills him. They keep up a steady push between them, gliding Judith back and forth in her swing like she’s the buffer keepin’ them from doing something tremendously stupid, but that’s fine. Whatever’s gonna keep Daryl in check is fine by him.

Because —

He looks at Beth, chances another glance, and he just. He fuckin’ knows.

Does he wanna kiss her? Jesus Christ, yes, he does.

Does he wanna hold her? Squeeze her fingers between his own? Pin her to his mattress and make her breath catch? Trail his mouth down her throat, so he can feel every push and pull of that breath after he’s made her come?

God. Fuck. Yes.

Does he wanna push that heat-frazzled hair from her face, tuck it behind her ears? Does he wanna press his perpetually dry lips to her temple and murmur somethin’ about takin’ her home? Gettin’ her all cleaned up just to get her dirty again?

Does he wanna whisper somethin’ about how pretty she looks?

_Christ god damn it Jesus_ — yes, he does. He wants to do that all the goddamn time.

He doesn’t tell her a word of it, not a hint, not a peep. He don’t know how to say it, and maybe it’d be too much, besides.

There’s more he’d like to say, but he doesn’t know how to put it to words, so they spend however long suspended in that silence that don’t need to be broken. It’s sorta nice — if Daryl weren’t so goddamn nervous about it, it’d be more than ‘sorta,’ but he’s gonna have to work with what he’s got here. And what he’s got right here, right now, is Beth in a soft worn tank top and holey cut-offs and he’s givin’ them all a lift back to Rick’s and it ain’t gotta be more than that. It can be _just that_, just a favor, and he can take Beth’s smile for a grateful thank-you and not make it into a whole ‘nother existential crisis or whatever shit.

They don’t hang ‘round long after Daryl shows up. Even on a Wednesday afternoon at the height of summer, they’ve got shit to be gettin’ on with — or Rick just wants Carl’s help with supper, whatever — so they pile into his truck maybe half an hour later. Daryl’s got a carseat stored in back for Judith, just in case, Carl’s buckled in next to his sister and Beth takes the front seat. The whole cab smells like the spritz of her flowery perfume before long, but what the hell’s he gonna say about it? Even if he wanted to, there’s nothing there but the continuous buzz of his brain, like he’s drunk even when he’s stone-cold sober.

Beth fiddles with his radio, ‘til she gives up on the tinny system and clicks it over to the CD function. It’s a Springsteen disc, and she talks about how he really should get with the times, ‘cause she could get him better quality on her phone if only he’d update to an aux cord.

“Disc’s fine,” Daryl mutters, even as it skips to halfway through the next song.

Beth tries not to laugh at him. “Sure it is, Mr. Dixon.”

He tries not to smile, just to keep things square.

The drive back’s easier, somehow, like Daryl can find his center or whatever the hell else now that he’s made a decision to deal with all his bullshit. The truck idles in the drive when Rick comes out to collect his kids, when he mentions something about bundling them all into his own car so he can drop Beth off at the farm, when Daryl says —

“I can take ‘er.”

Rick grins. “Sure you can handle it?”

Beth smiles, polite and puzzled, and Daryl scoffs. “Ain’t out of my way.”

Thing is, though, it is out of his way, by twenty minutes at least. They all know that, but it must be Daryl’s luck today that nobody points it out. Rick’s still smirking at him, but that’s as bad as it gets and it’s not the worst it could be, really, so Daryl takes it for what it is — just a smartass reaction from his smartass friend, and he can’t reasonably expect anything less from the guy, knowin’ what he does.

“See ya ‘round, then, honey,” Rick says, tapping the side of the truck. Daryl doesn’t know if he’s talking to him or Beth, but he’s being such a dick right now that Daryl assumes it’s him, but Beth’s none the wiser so Rick can get away with whatever he wants.

Daryl flips him off, anyway, and the sound of his friend’s laughter is drowned out by the truck’s engine.

Beth’s mouth is twisted into another one of those puzzled half-grins as they round the corner. “Y’all are weird sometimes, ya know that?”

“Nothin’ weird about it. He’s just an ass.”

“That’s really how you talk about your best friend, huh?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s _weird_.”

Daryl looks at her sidelong before turning his eyes back to the road. Can’t look at her too long or he’s fixin’ to get them into an accident. “How else ‘m I s’posed to talk t’ him?”

“Well…” Beth pauses. “I dunno, actually. Guess it’d be even weirder if you did it any other way. Wouldn’t really be _you_, y’know?”

He twiddles the steering wheel, tries not to look at her again. “An’ what you know ‘bout me, girl?”

He doesn’t much know why he’s asking her that. He’s curious, he guesses. Wants to know what she thinks of him. He doesn’t usually give a shit what anybody thinks of him, but Beth’s proven different in just about every way when it comes to how Daryl feels about people. So of course now he’s gonna go on and care what she sees when she looks at him and, fuck, he should’ve showered after work today.

“I dunno,” Beth says again. He can feel her eyes on him and forces his own to stay on the road. “It’s nothin’ bad, though, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Daryl huffs, even as the tips of his ears heat up. “Don’t matter either way.”

“You don’t want people to like you?”

“Don’t care.”

“Huh.” Beth seems to be thinking about that. Daryl can’t help himself now, he has to look at her, and when he does he finds her suckin’ on the corner of her lower lip and sorta smilin’ at him. When they catch eyes, she adds, “Well, I like you just fine. You care about that?”

_Jesus, yeah. _Lucky thing he doesn’t say so out loud. No, he turns back to the windshield and shrugs and his ears burn but he mutters, “S’alright” like he really _don’t_ care — but then Beth giggles and he knows she can tell she’s made him all bashful and shit. It’s the goddamn worst but it’s _Beth_ so actually it’s not so bad.

It’s kinda nice, to think about this, about Beth, without wanting to kick his own ass for it. Daryl shoulda given himself a break sooner. Never been one to do that, though; at least he got here one way or ‘nother.

The silence between them is companionable again, helped along by the skipping Springsteen CD and the hot summer breeze _whish_-ing through the open windows. They’ve got another ten, maybe fifteen minutes left to go, and Daryl wants to keep talking to her. He fuckin’ hates talking, it only gives everybody a chance to say somethin’ stupid, but he already feels stupid around Beth so what could it hurt? She likes talkin’. He’ll do it for her.

“Got anythin’ goin’ on tonight?” he asks.

“Nope.” She says it easy, but a flush highlights her cheekbones. “Don’t usually.”

“Right.”

He remembers what she said last time he talked to her, about how she doesn’t go out just to go. She’s nineteen, for fuck’s sake, she should be out all the time — doin’ stupid shit, doin’ whatever. He wants to take her somewhere. Nowhere in particular, just… somewhere. Just because, ‘cause she don’t let herself do nothing like that and Daryl doesn’t know why, but he wants to, and in the meantime he wants to make it better if he can. He’s not much for _better_, generally speaking, but somethin’ just ain’t right if Beth’s not smiling.

“Ever been to that forest preserve?” he asks before the question becomes just another thing for him to overthink. “Few roads down from y’r farm?”

“Couple’a times. Not recently, though.”

Daryl clears his throat — like sandpaper, like always. _Just fuckin’ ask her, dumbass._

“Wanna go?”

“Right now?”

Daryl shrugs. He’s not gonna make her or nothin’, just —

“Yeah,” Beth says before he can start gnawing at his thumbnail because he don’t know how to swallow his nerves. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot.”

“Alrigh’.” He takes the turn that’ll get them there instead of the farm. “Good.”

He didn’t mean to say that, but he catches a glimpse of Beth’s smile and figures it was worth it.

The sanctuary’s not much to speak of, more or less just another park, but without a playground and probably overgrown with flowers and trees that need trimmin’, weeds that need pullin’. Truth of it is, Daryl can’t tell the difference between flowers and most weeds, anyhow. Sure, he knows what’s poisonous, what’s edible, all that that’s got survival wrapped up in it, but he’d eat one of the poisonous ones on purpose before he tried to pick out flowers to give to Beth, lest he shove a bunch of dandelions at her like they’re roses when, apparently, they’re garbage.

Maybe he should just give her roses.

Daryl side-eyes her again when he pulls down the tailgate so they’ve got somewhere to sit. Wonders if she even likes roses and thinks she probably does — Beth’s the type to like anything that’s pretty, and even lots of shit that’s not so much and plenty of things that’re just plain ugly, too, she’d find somethin’ pretty about them — but he bets there’s something she likes better. He wonders if he can ask without sounding fuckin’ weird about it, and decides that he can’t. Not yet, anyway.

“It’s pretty here,” Beth notes once she’s hopped up onto the edge of the truck bed, legs swinging like they’d been against the counter in her kitchen. Daryl hoists himself up next to her, not too close, but he can feel the little breeze her feet kick up. “Real peaceful, too. I forgot about that.”

“S’quiet,” Daryl agrees. “Why I like it.”

“Daryl Dixon likes somewhere that’s quiet. Never would’ve guessed.”

He snorts. “Smartass.”

“You call me that a lot, y’know.”

“Yeah, well, ya got a smart mouth a lot.”

Beth smirks. “Yeah. I did real good in school.”

He doesn’t laugh, but… almost. “There y’ go ‘gain, girl, Jesus.”

She’s funny. A smartass kinda funny, yeah, but that’s Daryl’s favorite kind, anyway. It’s why he hangs ‘round Rick, part of why he tolerates Merle droppin’ in and makin’ a mess of his spare room (and the kitchen and the bathroom and, fuck it, just his whole apartment). Smartass but no bullshit, because you can tell she’s not faking anything. Maybe that’s the thing he likes about her so much — everything she says, does, she means all of it; ain’t no airs about it, the way you’d expect from someone raised up right and polite and God-fearin’ like her.

Beth’s all those things, sure. But she’s also… just Beth, he s’poses.

Quiet settles again. Daryl’s gonna lose count of how often it does, because he doesn’t dread it or hope for it when he’s with her — it’s just there, and that’s fine. The hot Georgia breeze rustles the treetops, squirrels shuffle in the bushes, a pond bubbles some ways off, the chatter of other park-goers can be heard, indecipherable, even farther away, carried on that same breeze.

Daryl glances at Beth out of the corner of his eye. She’s watching some birds twittering on a branch a few yards off, across the paved pathway that separates the edge of the parking lot from the treeline.

Idly, she twists a small braid into the tousled forest of her ponytail, ties it off with the electric green rubber band that’d been wrapped around her little finger like a ring — _like me_, Daryl thinks, but dismisses it soon as the thought occurs to him. The hell’s the matter with him, anyway?

Well… Nah. Alright. He knows the answer to that. Should’ve expected it.

He digs into his pocket for a Marlboro. His huff of impatience when the pack gets stuck has Beth turning to look at him, and when he’s finally shaken a cigarette out she plucks it from his grip and snaps it in two at the filter.

He blinks at her. “Fuck you do that for?”

“You shouldn’t smoke,” she tells him primly, simply, as she offers the mutilated cigarette back to him. So she doesn’t drop it and litter, he assumes. He should leave her to it, but of course he doesn’t.

No, he snatches the two ends and stuffs them into the pack. “An’ you shouldn’t be pissin’ me off.”

“Yeah?” Another smirk plays across her lips. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Oh, there’s a fair few things he’d _like_ to do about it, alright. But none of those are actual options, things he’s allowed. He’ll let himself think about Beth, but thinking about Beth like… _that_, is gonna have to wait ‘til he’s got a better handle on this situation.

So he shakes another cigarette out of its pack, eyes on Beth while he does it and his grip a little tighter this time, case she gets any other ideas about confiscating this one, too.

He doesn’t light it, though. Just holds onto it, ‘cause he needs something to hold onto.

“Not gonna do nothin’,” he admits. She’d been teasing but he figures he ought to say something back, and that’s the best he’s got. “‘Cept maybe tell y’ to fuck off.”

That makes Beth laugh. It’s short and loud and sounds like church bells, only lighter. Daryl starts a little at first; he hadn’t expected to make her laugh, but when his shoulders relax and his lips twitch without his permission, he realizes how much he likes it — that he’s the one who pulled that sound from her, without even meaning to.

And that, somehow, is when the truth of the matter really hits him, when her laugh’s ridin’ on that hot early evening breeze and there ain’t really anybody else around but the two of them. Like all he needed was to be alone with her to know.

He’s not gonna get over this thing he’s got for Beth, that much is damn clear. So maybe it’s time he gets over feelin’ bad about it.

Because — _maybe_ — doin’ something about this really isn’t the worst thing, just like Rick said. Better than stewin’ about it like he’s been. Almost feels like he can breathe again — _almost_, ‘cause even just sittin’ next to her like he is gets him some kinda choked up, like his lungs just can’t take it.

So she’s probably right, and he shouldn’t be smokin’ so much.

Daryl huffs when he sticks the cigarette back into its half-finished pack, just as impatient as he’d been when he was trying to fish one out a minute ago, only now he’s biting back a grin he can’t rightly explain. Beth’s not even tryna to bite back her own, though. She thinks it’s funny, wrappin’ him ‘round her little finger like that green rubber band had been — like Daryl knew he was already, but now he’s gone and all but told her.

“What’d I bring y’ here for, anyway?” he wants to know, and the grin’s there no matter how hard he bites his tongue.

“I dunno.” Beth kicks her sneakered foot up to the tailgate, wraps her arms ‘round her calf and props her chin on her knee. The sunlight catches the hints of green in her eyes when she looks at him. “But I’m sure glad ya did,”

Well, shit — Daryl ducks his head, fiddles with his pack of Marlboros — so’s he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: buckle up buttercups, things are about to get... _interesting_......


	4. from your front porch to my front seat

It becomes a thing, Daryl driving Beth home from Rick’s. An unspoken but agreed-upon _thing_, that he’ll leave when she does, that he’ll take her along with him. They don’t talk about it; it just is.

It’s not something Daryl’d be comfortable with, or even okay with, normally. But nothing’s ‘normally’ with Beth. And she don’t make a big production of it, doesn’t insist on givin’ him gas money (she offered once, but he brushed it off and she hasn’t mentioned it since) or anything that might make them talk about why he’s taking her to and from Rick’s and, as weeks whittle by, anyplace else she needs to go, too.

They don’t discuss it, it’s not any kind of — _arrangement_, or nothin’. Beth just lets it be, so Daryl can, too.

He appreciates that. Would even go so far as to say he likes it, and all things considered — what with the way he’s been thinkin’ about her and all — saying so wouldn’t be goin’ that far, really.

So they don’t talk about it but they both know that it’s somethin’. Or at least Daryl knows, or thinks, but that’s enough for now because if she wanted to talk about it frankly he wouldn’t know what to say. He’s not ready to try and say all the right things to her, and if he’s not ready then sure as hell he’s gonna fuck it up.

It’s for the best that they just leave it as is for right now.

Her name lights up his phone screen more often now. She texts, doesn’t call, which is fine by him because, yeah, texting’s fuckin’ stupid but he hates talking on the phone even more, and she keeps it short.

_**BETH**: Mind picking me up?_

_**DARYL**: There in a few._

_**BETH**: On the motorcycle this time? :)_

_**DARYL**: Hell no._

_**BETH**: :(_

She really wants on that bike. Daryl wonders how long he can hold out before he just can’t stand tellin’ her _no_ anymore. He wonders, too, if she knows how close he is to cavin’ all _Jesus, girl, fine_. He don’t do nothin’ but wonder when Beth’s on his mind, and she almost always is.

He wonders what her arms would feel like wrapped around him, too. She’d have to get closer to him than she does when they’re ridin’ in the truck together. Have to hold on tight if he took her out on the bike, press up tight against his back, squeeze her thighs tight on either side’a his —

_Fuck off_, he has to stop thinking _tight_ and _Beth_ in the same train of thought or he’s gonna fuckin’ kill himself over one goddamn word and one _god damn_ girl.

She’d be worth it. He won’t ever tell another soul, but she would be. Just… maybe he really would like to get her on the bike before he bit it, is all.

He even gets the pain-in-the-ass aux cord for her sake. Replaced the stereo himself. It wasn’t hard, he just never had a reason to do it before. It’s not a ride on the back of his — okay, _Merle’s_ — bike, but it’s something she wanted and Daryl rearranged his whole damn day off to get it done for her.

She was thrilled and didn’t even try to hide it. She’d skipped down her front porch steps and hopped into the cab of his truck, and laughed loud and giddy when he handed the cord to her without a word.

“Ya sure can treat a girl right when ya wanna,” she’d told him, all bright sunshine coming through the cracks of her toothy grin. She’d plugged in some bubblegum pop country and Daryl tried not to imagine all the ways he’d really like to treat her right if she wanted.

(Fuck, but he can’t think about that right now. It’s too much. No idea what to do with any of it. Knowing he’d like to kiss her is one thing, but once that thought blooms there’s no telling how or where it’s gonna grow, and he can’t figure out how to nip it in the bud because it’s probably too late for that, anyhow.

(He’s gotta get it goddamn _together_.

(She don’t make it easy on him, though.)

Most days Beth’ll kick off her shoes and swing her feet up on the dashboard, or out the window if he’s driving slow enough. Her toenails are always painted some garish bright color, all neon pinks and electric blues and yellows so bright they clash with the sun.

“Girl, getcha damn feet off my dash,” Daryl usually says, and she just turns the music up and chuckles when he side-eyes her. Once or twice he’s shoved at her calf, but he pulls away quickly so he’s got both hands on the wheel and because her skin’s so soft, there’s something that stirs deep in his gut when he touches her, something primal that urges him to touch her more and _damn it_ all to hell, he _can’t think about her like that_ right now.

He pushes it out of his mind. He’s gotta push a helluva lot, but it’ll do. Not forever, but for now, and he’ll take what he can get.

Sometimes she props a thick-bound journal on her bare thighs, pages crinkled and etched with her chicken-scratch whatever-she-writes. She chews on the end of her clicky pen and scribbles and then chews some more. Sometimes it’s words and others it’s doodles. It’s usually song lyrics, she tells him when he asks. Another time it was a grocery list. Once it was a whole page of little hearts, colored in or striped or polka-dotted (like that dress’a hers Daryl would really like to see her in again, but she hasn’t worn it and he starts wonderin’ if she’s got any others and he’s _gotta stop_).

“You like anything else but Springsteen?” she asks one afternoon, when he couldn’t take another Taylor Swift song and snatched her phone to change the playlist.

“What else y’ got in mind?” Daryl retorts. He drops her phone into the cup holder next to his. “Ain’t listenin’ to no Tim McGraw, neither. Get enough of that shit from Rick.”

Beth tilts her head thoughtfully. “You sorta strike me as the Rolling Stones type.”

“S’alright.”

“AC/DC?”

“They’s alrigh’, too. Merle likes ‘em.”

“Kiss?”

Daryl’s brain short-circuits. “S’cuse the hell outta me?”

“You know” — Beth’s already untidy braid comes looser in the wind blowin’ through her open window — “‘Rock and Roll All Nite,’ ‘Christine Sixteen,’ ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You.’” She laughs._ “‘Beth.’”_

“Right.” His grip flexes on the steering wheel. He needs to get ahold of himself; he’s never been this whacked out, not unless he’s pissed and looking for an excuse to fight, and that’s decidedly _not_ what he wants to do with Beth. “Yeah, uh — that’s a good one.”

“Which one?”

Daryl glances at her, then away just as quickly when he mumbles, “Y’know.”

He can hear the grin when she says _Oh_, but thankfully she drops it after that.

She flips open her journal and scratches something down in it. Daryl’s got the wild idea to ask what it is this time, but she hadn’t harped on him so he’s not gonna nag her, either. Only fair.

“I don’t mind,” Beth continues, like there’d never been a lull in their conversation, nothing but the rumble of the engine and the radio and the breeze kickin’ up the ends of their hair. She wriggles her toes — they’re painted purple today. “I like Springsteen.”

“Do y’?” he asks, a little on the doubtful side but, then again, Beth’s no liar.

“Mm-huh.”

“Wha’s your favorite?”

“Oh, that’s always a hard question.” Beth doodles in the corner of a crowded page. Shooting stars. “Guess it depends what sort of mood I’m in? And you’re gonna think I’m silly if I tell ya my favorite’s ‘Dancing In the Dark.’”

“Wouldn’t,” Daryl counters. Why would he? “Shouldn’t matter what I think, anyhow.”

Beth looks at him. The sun comin’ in behind her makes her hair shine ‘round her head like a halo. “Well, sure I do, though. I care about what you think, Daryl.”

Hand to god, one’a these days Daryl’s skin’s gonna burn right off if she keeps making him blush like this.

She seems to sense it, too, because she gives him what privacy she can in the cab of his truck and looks away, back to her crinkly ink-blotted pages. “Anyway, that one’s not always my favorite. If I had to pick _the one_, it’d hafta be ‘Atlantic City.’”

“Yeah?” He should’ve guessed, but… “Mighta taken y’ for more’a the ‘Secret Garden’ type.”

Or maybe it’s only that _he’s_ the type, ‘cause that one makes him think of her.

“Oh, shoot.” Beth makes another note in her journal, and sketches a daisy next to it (Daryl tucks that flower away into some back corner of his brain, y’know, case he ever needs it). “See, I toldja it’s too hard to pick a favorite.”

“Nah.” Daryl fishes her phone from its holder, so he can scroll to her favorite Springsteen and put it on. “Y’ said ‘Atlantic City.’”

“I know that’s what I said, but —”

“But nothin’, girl,” he interrupts along with the steady, slow open of the song. He jerks his chin at the stereo. “Y’r in that church choir, righ’? G’on, why doncha sing a little bit’a this.”

He shifts his eyes to her, just for a look, and he sees her looking back at him. The sun’s on its way to setting, bright and yellow behind her, making the humid frizz of her hair stand out. She tucks some of it back behind her ears, and the clack of the colorful beads around her wrist joins the whistle of the wind and the melody coming through the speakers.

Her cheeks glow pink when she asks, “You want me to sing?”

Shit, was that too much? Daryl clears his throat, backs it the fuck up a bit when he adds, “‘f y’ want.”

She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t turn him down, either, when the song rolls around to the chorus and her sweet voice joins in seamlessly, fillin’ up the cab just like her perfume does every time she slides into the seat next to him. Her toes wriggle again, this time to the slow beat of the words as she sings along with them:

_Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact_  
_ But maybe everything that dies someday comes back_  
_ Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty_  
_ And meet me tonight in Atlantic City…_

Holy hell, but does she sing pretty. ‘Course she does, he should’ve figured, but still his throat sticks when he hears her. He’d like to say it’s the sun heatin’ up his ears, but he knows better.

Between her and the sunlight, it’s always Beth.

He lets his foot up on the gas some, so that the truck slows down on the backroad they’d been driving. They take the long way ‘round whenever he drives her home. They’re out on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields and open spaces, and her voice is fillin’ up all that empty air and Daryl looks at her because he can’t keep his eyes on the road when she’s singin’ like that.

When she hits the chorus again, she gives him a smile and his gaze drops to the notebook in her lap, to her chicken-scratch hearts and flowers, and somewhere in that mess of words and doodles he sees his name. About swallows his damn heart, or whatever it is that’s caught in his throat.

He doesn’t know what words are around it on either side, doesn’t know how his name fits in with any of ‘em, or even how he fits into her world at all. He’s not gonna ask her about it, but maybe it answers some things he never would’ve asked her, just in case she said no and left him all twisted up inside.

_Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold_  
_ But with you forever I’ll stay_  
_ We’re going out where the sand’s turning to gold_  
_ So put on your stockings, baby, ‘cause the night’s getting cold_  
_ And maybe everything dies, that’s a fact_  
_ But maybe everything that dies someday comes back…_

Beth hums along as the song tapers out, voice cutting from high and crystal-clear to a low, husky thing, like she’s just woken up or just finished kissin’ somebody, or —

Now Daryl’s thinkin’ about what she might sound like if he was that somebody. If he’s the one got to kiss her.

_Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit._

That keeps him busy all the rest of the way to the farm. Thinkin’ about the lilt of her voice as she sings, about how it drops off when she’s done, the way her eyes shine brighter and that smile tugs at the corners of her lips but she keeps it in check, and, _shit_, that’s doin’ somethin’ to him that’s got his hands tightening on the wheel again.

“Thanks,” Beth chirps when he pulls up into the dirt drive in front of the house. She drops her feet from the dash and back into her dusty moccasins, unplugs her phone and tucks her notebook and pen into her bag. She tightens her ponytail and fluffs it out a little, and that citrusy smell that must be her shampoo or perfume or just plain _her_ hits him all over again.

He’s really gonna fuckin’ die over this girl, isn’t he?

She pushes the door open and hops out, landing with a soft _fwump! _when the soles of her shoes hit the ground. She pulls her bag from the footwell, tosses him another smile.

“See ya tomorrow. Keepin’ my fingers crossed you’re gonna take me for a ride on that motorbike, Mr. Dixon.”

She throws in a wink with that smile and, oh, _Christ_, but she’s actually trying to kill him dead. Daryl wasn’t sure before, but she’s gotta know what she’s doin’, don’t she?

Then again… He watches her walk up the path to her big whitewashed front porch, ponytail swingin’ (because yeah, that’s all he’s watchin’, he insists even when his eyes travel south and he’s gotta jerk ‘em back up so he don’t make a liar of himself). Truth of it is, he hardly knows what the hell’s goin’ on anymore, so Beth probably hasn’t got a clue, either. She ain’t the type.

Didn’t think he was the type, either, he muses.

When he catches himself lookin’ at her ass again, he swears to high heaven.

* * *

_She’s in that polka-dot dress again. Legs bare. Feet, too. Toenails painted a bright blood-orange. Her hair’s piled up in that habitual ponytail a’hers. He’d like to see it down, wants to run his hands through that mess of blonde, but he likes the way the ponytail leaves her throat bare.  
_

_Leanin’ against the motorcycle, legs crossed at the ankles, toes diggin’ into the dirt but she don’t seem to mind it none. He counts the freckles on her thighs — seven of ‘em that he can see, three on her left leg and four on her right. He’d like to hitch that skirt up a little higher, see if there’s more. Wants to press his lips against each one. Wants to see the scratch of beard burn he’d leave behind on her smooth pale legs, just the freckles and his mark on her to disturb all that otherwise untouched skin._

_He don’t wanna leave her untouched, that’s for sure._

_“What’d I tell y’ ‘bout my bike, huh, girl?” he asks her. “No way.”_

_Beth smiles. “Thought you said it was your brother’s bike.”_

_“Don’t think he’s the one y’r waitin’ on.” Daryl lets his eyes linger on her legs, then up to her collarbone. Slow, like a caress, like he’s touching her with more than just wishful thinking for once. “Not dressed like that.”_

_“Dressed like what?” They’re so close he can feel her breath on his lips. He wants a hell of a lot more of her on his mouth._

_He runs his thumb up the thin strap that ties ‘round her shoulder, loosens the thing, eases it down half an inch. “Like you want somethin’ from me.”_

_That smile brushes against his own mouth now, so fucking close but not at all enough. A shuddering groan escapes from deep in his throat. He crowds closer to her, more more more —_

_“Toldja already,” she murmurs. The tip of her tongue flicks against his lower lip. His dick twitches. “Just want you to take me for a ride, Mr. Dixon.”_

_Fucking _hell_._

_He takes her, alright — takes her hip in his hand, takes her mouth with his. He holds her fast and close and he tastes her hard, crushing them together so their lips are fused and he can feel her curves pressed tight to him, soft and angular all at once._

_She runs her fingers through his hair and tugs, yanking him closer still. His tongue tastes hers, like somethin’ sweet, orange blossoms and French vanilla and a hint of the Marlboro he’d smoked earlier. Had to smoke, had to do somethin’ with his hands that wasn’t grabbing at her, pawin’ at her like he is now._

_The bike’s engine revs behind her of its own accord, kicking up a light, humming vibration that makes Beth arch her back and moan. The movement gets her up against him, tight and hard, and her moan tastes like she wants more. He presses his hips to hers, so she can feel how hard he’s getting for her, how much more he wants, too._

_He wants to fuck her._

_It’s never felt like this before._

_He’s never wanted it like this — fast and rough and dirty. Like he can’t breathe another damn second without her. Like it’s been driving him crazy and he can’t take it anymore if he can’t fuck her. Like she can read his mind, because when he thrusts against her again, she gasps into his mouth, “I want you.”_

_“G’on and give it to me, girl,” he mutters, all hot and needy as he drags his mouth down her neck, behind her ear, to mark her up with a suck and twirl of his tongue. His hand slides up her skirt and he finds her just as hot, just as needy __— fucking _desperate_ _— ___as he is. “An’ I’ll give it t’ you good.”_

_She’s not wearing anything under that dress. Not a stitch._

_“Fuck.” He grounds the word out, growls it, shoves his knee between her legs to spread them wider. So he can touch her. “Y’ really want it, Beth?” he pants in her ear, lips dragging against her jaw. “Want me to fuck your tight pussy with my fingers, that it? Gonna ride my hand?”_

_She’s clutching his hair, chest hitching under his, body shaking along with the revved bike behind her. Her hips angle up up up, seeking friction. He’s so hard for her it hurts, like he needs to bury himself deep into her or his chest’s gonna fucking explode, like his lungs are gonna collapse if he can’t feel her like he wants to._

_She sighs his name, and he groans hers back, loud, louder than her pleading breath in his ear, louder than the bike’s engine, so loud, too loud —_

Daryl wakes with a start, breath coming heavy and short, sweat on his brow and sheets tangled ‘round his legs, and so fucking hard with Beth’s name on his dry lips, _Christ_, she’s really got him waking up like this in the middle of the night.

He checks the time on his phone. Two in the goddamn morning, and his fried frazzled brain’s got him opening their text thread, like he’s actually gonna say something to her about what he just dreamed. The hell would he say?

_‘Need to fuck you NOW’_? It’s all he can think up and fuck no, he ain’t gonna tell her that, Jesus, what’s _wrong_ with him?

He drops his phone, not giving a shit when it clatters to the floor. He’s got bigger problems, like the hard-on he’s got for Beth and how she ain’t here so he can do what he wants about it. Like how he shouldn’t be thinking about this but it’s too late or too early and it’s out of his damn hands now, he wants her so bad. Like how this opened up a whole new door in the back of his brain and he’s thinkin’ about all of it now, all that shit he thought he’d locked up. But now…

Fuck, but now all he can think about is being in Beth. His fingers, his tongue, his dick. Any way she’d have him, whatever she told him to do to her, he’d be on his knees so fast. Get those legs around his shoulders, around his hips, pound her into his mattress like…

_God DAMN IT._

It’s too fucking god damn _fucking early_ in the morning for this.

Daryl kicks himself free of his tangled sheets and heads for the bathroom. Doesn’t matter what time it is, he’s a wreck, a fucking _mess_, and he needs a shower. A cold one. Fucking frigid.

But he thinks about Beth’s bare freckled legs up on his dashboard, though, and it don’t matter how cold that water runs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: lmao whoops


	5. killer graces, secret places that no boy can fill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: this chapter took me so many days that i hate it on principle (or maybe it really is just That Bad, who’s to say). here’s hopin’ the rest of you heartily disagree. xx

He’s never been this confused before in his goddamn life.

If Daryl thought he had a hard time lookin’ Beth in the eye before… Well, he should’ve counted his lucky stars then, because now? Now he’s never gonna manage it again.

He knew he was thinking about her like that, knew there were things brewin’ in his mind that noticed the curve of her hip or how high her shirt rode up when she bent down or the strip of skin he could see above her shorts whenever she’d lift her arms to fix her ponytail. He was aware — _painfully aware _— and yet somehow he had no fuckin’ clue what any of it was. He thought about making her come, but he didn’t imagine how and now he has and —

Jesus fuck.

He knows Beth is pretty. God, but he _knows_. But things like that, they never meant much’a anything to him before.

_Before. _Because Daryl can split his life up into two parts: Before Beth and After Beth. He thinks there might’ve been some middle ground there once, when he knew about her but he didn’t _know_, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Doesn’t make a lick of difference.

He’d let himself think about how much he wanted her without letting himself think about what that meant. About what it fuckin’ _entailed_, to want somebody. It’s not something he’s ever really done, he never let anybody get close enough for him to want them. Beth, though…

Beth didn’t need permission. She just fit, effortlessly, seamlessly, the way her voice blended with the music in his truck. Naturally. He’d kept tryin’ to figure out how and when and why he started feelin’ like this about her, but maybe there was no way to pinpoint it because it’d happened so… like it was supposed to happen. Daryl hadn’t _let_ her close enough; she’d sidled into his life like she’d always been there, like she belonged, because she thought he was worth bein’ around.

_Well, sure I do, though. I care about what you think, Daryl._

She’d said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

He’s comfortable with her, because she makes it easy to be. No bullshit, that’s what she is. He knows he ain’t good enough for her, to even be around her, breathe the same air, any of it, but she never made him feel that way; that’s all on him. He’s nervous around her, hardly ever knows what to do, but…

But. There’s always a _but_, is the thing. It’s like Daryl knows he’s trying to kid himself but there’s another part that won’t let him, another part that’s smarter and wants more, wants better, wants Beth, and that other part won’t let him fuck it up.

Maybe suppressing all that shit fucked it up already, though. He’d bottled it all up and then it just… burst. He didn’t know what to do with it so he told himself no, tried to keep it under control when it’s not controllable.

If he’s gonna want Beth, then he’s gonna have to deal with wanting her. Whatever it all means, even if — even if he’s scared, or whatever pansy shit Merle’s always accusin’ him of being when he tries to goad Daryl into a fight ‘cause he’s bored and he thinks it’s funny to make his brother’s ears go red. And the last thing Daryl wants to do about Beth is talk to Merle about her. Bad enough he caught her calling just the once; that gave him enough ammo to rib Daryl for weeks, and he’s still goin’ strong when he feels like it. If Merle knew about his inability to sleep or what happens when he does manage a few hours, Daryl’d have to leave the damn state.

Christ, he’s never done any of this before. No wonder he’s such a damn basket case about it.

Dreamin’ about her… He said things, did things, all these things he just didn’t… Fuck, he’s never felt like this, how’s he supposed to know? Never thought he could say things like that, be bold enough to touch her like he did when he wasn’t awake enough to think that he shouldn’t or can’t. Yeah, it was a dream, but — _but_, again — he wants to do all that, for real. Maybe not up against the motorcycle like that, that didn’t make no damn sense and it’s not safe, besides, but he still wants to get his hand up her skirt.

So it’s some kinda cosmic joke — or just his own damn bad luck, because Daryl doesn’t believe in shit like fate and all, he’s got enough problems as it is — that dream or no, even though Rick’s off work so he doesn’t need a babysitter, which means Daryl should have a couple of days before he’s got to face Beth again, he’s only got the morning free before he’s gotta head to Rick’s neighborhood. He shouldn’t even be going to this thing and frankly he doesn’t remember how he got talked into it.

Or. Alright. He runs a hand over his face, defeated as all fuck. If his subconscious or whatever shit is gonna try to kill him every night over this, he might as well face it in the light of day, too. He got talked into it real easy, because Beth’d be in a swimsuit and apparently this is just the sort of man he is now.

The Joneses live down the street from Rick and the kids. Got a kid of their own, Duane, who Beth sits for sometimes, usually when she’s already got Carl and Judith and she can leave the boys to their video games or whatever baking show Carl thinks might impress her. (Daryl don’t have the heart to tell him that Beth’s never mentioned baking before. No harm in the kid tryin’.)

Morgan and Jenny like to host their neighbors and friends, throwin’ barbeques and parties at their backyard pool that Daryl usually finds a way of avoiding, but this time he couldn’t think up his usual reasons to say no — the usual reason bein’ that he doesn’t want to fuckin’ be there, plain and simple, but then Rick had gone and sucker-punched him right in his sweet spot.

“Beth’s gonna be there,” he’d said, grinnin’ like that freaky-ass cat in _Alice In Wonderland_, which Daryl only knows ‘cause Judy likes the cartoon so much.

“Never should’a said a damn word to you ‘bout that,” Daryl grumbled.

“I guessed,” Rick reminded him. “And you’re shit at pretendin’ you’re not looking at her, anyway. Careful with that when we’re at Morgan and Jenny’s. Hershel’s gonna be there, too, wouldn’t want him catchin’ you eyeballin’ his little girl like you do.”

“Don’t.”

_“Do,”_ Rick insisted. “And it’s my day off, I don’t feel like arrestin’ anybody if you get shot. Though I guess if Maggie guts you with that look she gets sometimes, there’d be no provin’ you were murdered. Could chalk it up to natural causes, save me the paperwork.”

“Fuck you,” Daryl said at the time.

_Fuck me_, he thinks now, as he starts up the truck and tries not to remember how that same sort of rumble made Beth’s body tremble up against his in that dream. This is gonna be the goddamn worst day of his life, and he’s driving towards it like lookin’ at Beth in a two-piece ain’t gonna kill him — or, like Rick said, any number of people won’t do the job if they catch him at it.

As it turns out, there’s plenty of people there to catch him, but maybe too many to bother noticin’. Daryl’s eyes scan the noisy backyard, Judith on his hip and Carl on his heels, Rick in the kitchen behind them to drop off the food he brought along. Sees a handful of people he likes (a small miracle), more that he could do without (Maggie’s _fine_, but she’ll be the one to kill him if it comes down to it, he’s sure of it), a couple he may have given a black eye before (Shane’s a dick, and he’s gonna either avoid Negan or crack another bottle over his head, there’s no middle ground there), a shit ton of kids and some people Beth’s age and then —

_Fuck me_, Daryl thinks again, only this time his brain tacks a pathetic sort of_ ‘please’ _onto the end of it.

These thoughts ain’t goin’ anywhere, right? Might as well roll with ‘em.

She’s in a strappy green or blue or — hell, he don’t know, turquoise or some shit — thing that bares her legs and her middle and her collarbone, arms and shoulders and ankles and the dimples in her lower back. Her feet are bare, too, toes painted — _damn it_, that same bright dark orange color they’d been in his dream, what the fuck kinda thing is that to happen?

“Hi, y’all,” Beth says when she reaches them. She ruffles Carl’s hair, pushes her sunglasses up against her ponytail and plucks Judith from Daryl’s arms, which is probably good news since his muscles had gone slack at the sight of her, including his jaw but he snaps that shut real quick.

Not quick enough, though, not entirely, because when Beth bounces the baby on her hip, Daryl could say he’s not looking at her chest but he’s not about to make a liar of himself, either, so…

God damn, if this is what it’s like to have sex on the brain, it’s no wonder Merle’s such an ass most of the time. Shit’s exhausting.

Beth gives his shirt and jeans a once-over of her own. “You ain’t swimmin’?”

“Nah.” He leaves it at that. What else is he gonna do, tell her he doesn’t take his shirt off in front of anybody? The scars on his back are a lifetime old, but they’d be news to almost anybody else here.

“Hm.” She cocks her head a bit, lets Judith knock her sunglasses askew and tug on her ponytail. Daryl’d sorta like to do that, too, mess her hair up some and — Jesus, this is gonna kill him.

It’s killin’ him as it is, has been since this whole Beth… _thing_ started. Ain’t helpin’ now that she’s considering his shirtfront like there’s somethin’ she’d like to see underneath it — or, fuck, maybe that’s just Daryl’s head runnin’ wild with how much he wants her, now it’s got him thinkin’ that she wants him, too.

Must’ve been the wrench he took to the face. It’s been a few weeks, somethin’ like a month or so since, but he probably should’ve gone to the doctor’s because obviously it’s gone and fucked him up more than he thought.

One of Beth’s friends — Amy, Daryl thinks it is — calls her over before Beth can finish whatever it is she’s doin’ to him. A damn shame, but maybe for the best if Daryl doesn’t want to get murdered today. The notion doesn’t stop him from watching the sway of her hips (alright, fine, so he’s looking at her ass again) as she walks away, Judith still in tow and giggling when Beth blows a raspberry on her chubby cheek.

He releases a low breath, like he’s winded, before he tears his eyes away, only to find Carl doin’ the same thing he was. Daryl hopes he wasn’t as obvious, but if he’s being honest with himself, it’s hard to say.

“Hey.” Daryl smacks him upside the head. “Eyes up, kid.”

When Carl gives no indication that he’s heard him except to rub the back of his head reflexively, like he’s in a daze, Daryl mutters a ‘Christ’ and nudges him, so that he trips over his own feet and splashes into the in-ground pool in front of them.

He breaks the surface, sputtering. “What’d you do that for?!”

“Savin’ y’ from y’rself, kid.” To be fair, Daryl’d just as soon let someone push _him_ into the pool, too, if it’d shock him out of his own dirty thoughts.

Duane, who’s lounging on a pool noodle nearby, levels Daryl with a look while Carl tries to splash at him. Daryl steps out of the line of fire quicker than he’d taken his eyes off Beth, so he avoids the water. “Come on, Mr. Dixon, ain’t you never liked a girl before?”

Daryl crosses his arms over his chest. “So what?”

“So,” Duane says with all the patience of a thirteen-year-old boy (like, fuckin’ none), “if you like a girl, ya wanna look at her, don’t you? Plus, Beth’s all —”

“Real pretty,” Carl supplies, even though his cheeks flame bright red when he says so. He treads water easily, like it was his idea to jump in the pool in the first place, and levels Daryl a look of his own as he adds, “Don’t you think?”

“Think y’all need to shut up and keep y’r eyeballs in y’r skulls, s’what I think,” Daryl mutters. No way is he about to let a couple of pubescent kids get his number like that, nuh-uh.

Duane smirks and Carl says some smartass thing he more’n likely picked up from his dad, about how only Daryl could be surrounded by half-dressed pretty girls and still find something to complain about. Daryl doesn’t bother sniping at him for it, because Carl’s right and Daryl does have something to complain about, because the only pretty girl he wants to be surrounded by is Beth, and he’d like to be alone with her when it happened, too.

It’s a fair complaint, if you ask him (but hopefully no one does).

The afternoon is shaping up to be a whirlwind of torture, which Daryl expected but all the same he’s not prepared for it. He can’t stop looking at Beth, same as he always can’t stop lookin’ even when he shouldn’t, but he’s past all that, isn’t he? Past the common sense that tells him not to look directly into the sun, because it’s so damn bright that his eyes are drawn to it, no matter how bad it is for him.

Beth’s not bad for him, though. Couldn’t be bad for nothin’, even if she tried. He’s a fuckin’ idiot for all of it, but Beth is all good regardless of how stupid it makes him.

She holds tight to Judith, but she’s laughin’ with her friends, and that’s enough to settle the unease in his gut when he notices a couple of guys her own age lookin’ at her the way he is. Or _almost_ the way he is, but Daryl doesn’t think anybody looks at Beth quite the way he does, ‘cause ain’t no way anyone else could feel like this about her. Not that she doesn’t deserve it or like she’s not worth how much he wants her, it’s just that he’s never felt like this before and that has to mean something, don’t it? Has to mean that this is real.

Daryl takes a bracing swig of beer and tries to listen to what Aaron’s saying, tries to act like the way Beth caught his eye and smiled from across the backyard don’t got him all up in knots. He can only hope no one else sees it, ‘specially when —

“Daryl,” Hershel greets him warmly, that big smile makin’ him look all friendly, and the floppy sun hat on his head makin’ him look approachable, like he wouldn’t skin you alive for lookin’ twice at his little doodlebug. “How are you, son?”

“Doin’ alrigh’, sir.”

_Not thinkin’ about strippin’ your daughter down so I don’t gotta guess at what that little blue-green thing’s covering up, not thinkin’ about untyin’ those strings and getting on my knees like I’m at Sunday church and shovin’ my head between her thighs._

Jesus, maybe he deserves to get skinned or shot or whatever anybody might have in store for him.

He thinks he deserves it, standing next to this man who’s been a lot more to him than Daryl would ever be able to say out loud. ‘Cause Hershel, he knows about the marks on his back. Daryl doesn’t know what the man knows about Will Dixon, doesn’t know what Merle shared in AA before he ducked out (Daryl drove him, but he waited in the hall whenever the meetings started). None of that matters, though, ‘cause Hershel saw his back for himself once when Daryl dislocated his shoulder at the farm. Had to take his shirt off so Hershel could get him fixed up, and the man had just known. Guess anybody who’s got a daddy like that just does.

And how’s Daryl thank him for that? He pants like a dog after the man’s youngest daughter, is what he does. That ain’t right, but Daryl’s too far gone to stop.

“Good, that’s good,” Hershel says genially, honestly. “And your brother?”

“Same as ever.”

That gets a chortle. “That sounds like you Dixon boys.”

He says it like that’s a good thing, though Daryl doesn’t know how he could believe that it is. He takes another draw of beer, remembers that’s what he did when Rick figured him out — just swallowed it all down to keep himself from saying something stupid, something telling, damning, whatever. Don’t matter ‘cause Rick knows now, but that don’t mean Hershel has to.

“I wanted to thank you,” he says next, and Daryl nearly chokes. _For what?_ “For looking after Beth the past few weeks. You’re taking good care of her.”

Oh, if Hershel Greene only knew how Daryl’d like to be ‘taking good care of her’... Well, he’d be a dead man about a hundred times over. He shouldn’t be thanked for it, that’s for damn sure.

He scuffs his foot against the smooth paved patio. “Ain’t nothin’.”

“It’s been a rough few years for my little girl, you know,” Hershel continues, like he’s not gonna let Daryl shrug this off. “It eases my mind to know she can still make friends, even in unlikely, maybe somewhat unconventional, places.”

It doesn’t sound like Hershel’s trying to call him out or give him any kind of shotgun talk or nothin’, he’s just being his genuine self. It’s the kinda man he is. But. _But. _Daryl feels guilty enough that it might as well be, and guiltier still because he knows he can’t go on and give this thing up. Because it’s not just some _thing_, it’s Beth, and if Daryl goes down this road one more time he knows he’s gonna lose his damn mind.

He’s already losing his damn mind. Probably lost the whole thing by now. But still. _Fuck._

Hershel claps him on the shoulder, leaves him be, lets it lie, and Daryl thinks this might be the first time he thinks there really is a merciful benevolent God watching overhead, ‘cause this shit’s a miracle.

The thought doesn’t last, though, ‘cause now Rick’s on his ass again.

“So, what d’you want on your headstone, huh?”

“Fuck off.”

Rick nods. “Sounds about right.”

Daryl’s got half a mind to push him in the pool, too, but before he can there’s Beth again, showin’ up before he can make a bad decision (though he’d call it a good one, because fuck Rick right now, alright?).

“Daddy givin’ you a hard time?” she asks. It takes all Daryl’s self-control not to ‘fess up and tell her, no, he’s been givin’ himself a _hard_ _time_ over her just fine all on his own, thanks.

Probably wouldn’t’ve come out right, he’d probably say somethin’ somehow worse than that, so it’s just as well that he only manages a grunt in response.

Rick looks like he’s about to say some smartass thing and swear to god, Daryl really is gonna push him in the pool if he does, but he’s saved from causing a scene by Judith, who’s started yanking on Beth’s ponytail and giggling like it’s the funniest thing in the world to make her babysitter wince like that.

“Want me to take her for a bit?” Rick offers, but Beth shakes her head, even goes so far as to angle away from him so that he can’t extract Judith from her protective embrace.

“Don’t you take this baby from me, Mr. Grimes.” Gently, she frees her hair from the baby’s grip. Judy’s just distractible enough that she don’t mind. “Think she’s the only thing keepin’ me from gettin’ thrown into the pool.”

“Don’t like swimmin’?”

“Just don’t like gettin’ _thrown_.”

“Who said they was gonna do that to ya, anyway?”

Beth jerks her head towards her friends. “Zach.”

Rick chuckles. “Think Zach’s just flirtin’ with you, honey.”

Up ‘til now, Daryl’s gotta admit he wasn’t paying too much attention to their conversation. The breeze had picked up and he’d been just as distractible as the kid, only a helluva lot less innocently, since he could smell the sunscreen comin’ off Beth’s skin and he was getting deep in thought about what it might taste like. Innocent or not, though, Daryl was feelin’ alright with whichever way that particular cookie crumbled, but then…

Well, leave it to Rick to fuck all that up.

Beth’s face is pink enough that she could claim sunburn if she wanted, but she wouldn’t because the girl’s no liar, however harmless or sacrificial for the sake of her ego. Beth don’t got much in the way of ego, anyhow, far as Daryl can tell. “Sorry, what?”

Yeah, frankly, Daryl’d like to know what the hell Rick’s talking about, too, so he can decide whose ass he needs to kick. (His own is, as usual, at the top of the list, but somebody else’s would make for a good distraction or stress relief or some other shit, he doesn’t know, he’s just suddenly got the urge to punch someone in the face and, hell, Rick’s lookin’ like a good option right about now, too.)

“What?” Rick laughs, mostly at Daryl but it’s not like Beth’s ever gonna guess that. “Nobody ever flirt with you before?”

“I —” Beth frowns. She glances at Daryl and he doesn’t even have half a second to wonder why before she’s looked away again, nibblin’ on her lip in this way that makes Daryl stare at her (he was already starin’, but now it’s just… more). “I dunno, uh, you know what…” She hands Judith off, and Rick takes her easily, like he expected it after what he said. “Maybe take her for a minute, I gotta — I need a drink.”

“You ain’t old enough,” Daryl says, for once not thinking because his head’s just not on straight right now, he just spits it out like a reprimand.

“S’cuse me, Mr. Dixon, sir,” Beth says drily, with a roll of her eyes that somehow, he don’t know why, but it makes him wanna kiss her _hard_. “Didn’t know you were in charge’a me.”

He’s got nothing to say to that. Doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth again, ‘less he wants more stupid shit to come outta it. Truthfully, too, there’s this little niggling part of him that perked up at the idea of bein’ _in charge_ of her. Came outta nowhere, from the same place that dream did, and the middle of a friend of a friend’s backyard just ain’t the place to think on that too much.

“Didn’t mean that kinda drink, anyway,” Beth’s saying. She snaps one of her bracelets against her wrist. “Y’all want anything while I’m in there?”

Rick mentions a juicebox for Judy, says he’ll take a beer if she’s offerin’, then all a sudden he’s offering Daryl, too, to help her ‘cause she’s only got two hands, blah blah blah, Daryl wants to kill him but that’s no different than any other day lately. Not like it means anythin’ anymore. Even if it did, it doesn’t stop Daryl from following Beth into the cool, dim, blissfully quiet kitchen, so it is what it is and now he’s alone with her for the first time he dreamt about making her come and isn’t that just… fuckin’ great.

She snatches a celery stick from the veggie platter on the counter and nibbles on it like she did her lip, like a nervous rabbit. Daryl’s hunted enough of ‘em to know, but seeing Beth like this has him thinkin’ he won’t be tracking rabbits anymore.

He’s somehow smart enough to know not to say anything about it to her. What he knows most of all is what an idiot he is whenever Beth’s in his eyeline or, hell, just in his head, so it’s somethin’ like a miracle (and, fuck, but does he think a lot about miracles when it comes to her) that he knows to shut up right here, right now. Especially with Beth pacin’ around half-naked like she is, the fact that Daryl’s managing to think any sense at all’s almost got him believin’ in the Big Man Upstairs after a lifetime of calling horseshit.

“Y’alright?” he asks after about a minute of nothing but the sound of Beth gnawing on her celery. He’s used to her quiet spells by now — never thought he’d be sayin’ so about Beth Greene, of all people, but here they are — but this is something else.

She darts a look, nervous like her chewing, his way. “You probably think I’m bein’ pretty stupid.”

He doesn’t, but then he doesn’t know what he’s thinking himself right now and that’s a little more troublesome. He shrugs.

It’s about Zach, that much’s clear. Daryl’s not stupid or totally oblivious, not in the least. He might not know how he feels about it, but it’s not like it went right over his head. And it’s botherin’ Beth, besides.

No point in pretending he doesn’t notice that, so he asks, “You don’t like ‘im or somethin’?”

She finishes off her celery but doesn’t stop pacing around as she explains — or tries to, near as he can tell when all her words come rushed and rambling.

“Not like that, I don’t. Maybe if it was last year or — I dunno. Just feels like it’d be like dating Jimmy all over again in a way. They’re different, but it’s still the same sort of thing. Right?” she asks, as if Daryl fuckin’ knows. “Just goin’ out with a boy who’s not all that serious about it, or — look, I dunno why he likes me, if he even does, and I don’t like guessin’ and not knowin’. I don’t think it’d be fair for me to pretend like that’s alright by me, ‘cause it’s not.”

“Zach’s a good kid.” What the fuck is he saying that for? It’s true, but…

His gaze flicks to Beth.

_But._

“Yeah,” she agrees, “but that’s not a good reason to be with somebody.”

“What’s a good reason, then?” Fuck, why’s he saying _that_?

“I dunno.” Her mouth twists up in a little smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Guess I don’t know anythin’, do I? Just like I said, they ain’t ever all that serious. I don’t wanna play around like that no more.

“Never done much of it in the first place,” she adds on a sigh Daryl’s sure’s meant to be self-deprecating (he’s sighed enough of ‘em to know). “It just don’t seem worth it. I hear some’a the other girls talk about dating and how it goes and I don’t want that. I want…”

Beth trails off. Seems more interested in twisting her fingers together than she does in finishing whatever she was about to say. The sudden drop-off wouldn’t bother Daryl usually, but he’s long since past the point where he thinks anything about this thing with Beth is _usual_.

So he nudges her back towards what’s on her mind. “What?”

“A grown-up kinda love, I guess.” She shrugs like she’s embarrassed, and he feels his own face go hot. “Y’know?”

Daryl shuffles his feet. “Don’t know nothin’ ‘bout it, girl.”

“You never been in love before?”

“Nah. Never really thought about it.”

“Oh.”

He doesn’t know where this conversation’s going or even what it’s about, just that it’s making his stomach squirm and he can’t stand the light but incessant padding of Beth’s bare feet across the cool tile floor.

On her next pass, he stops her with a hand on her elbow. “Would y’ quit pacin’? Gonna walk a hole through the damn floor.”

“D’you —” She looks up at him and he thinks maybe they’re standing too close. “Would you wanna?”

“Wanna what?”

“Fall in love.”

_Oh, fuck me_, Daryl thinks, not for the first time today and probably just the beginning of this new pattern in his life, woven from whatever it is he’s feeling about her, for her. Beth does about a thousand things to him he never expected, and thinking about falling in love’s just… It’s another of the thousand things. One that he’s not ready for. Not now, standing in the middle of the neighbors’ kitchen like there’s not two dozen people outside, like the two of them right here, right now, have even the slightest clue as to what’s happening.

He has no fucking idea. So that’s more or less what he tells her.

“Shit, girl, I’unno.” He lets go of her arm. Didn’t realize he’d still been holding it, won’t think about how his thumb had been dragging up the smooth line her skin over and over again by the time he noticed. “What’re you askin’ me f’r, anyway?”

Beth’s smile is real this time, if a little lopsided. “You started it.”

Alright, so she’s got him there. No surprises, 'cause she usually does.

* * *

It’s been a long day, by the time it starts winding down. Feels like he’s been on autopilot for most of it, or maybe that was just all the sun and the three or four beers he downed. Whatever it is, his head’s hazy and he feels like he could sleep for a solid couple days. Daryl can’t say why he stuck around this long. Or maybe he could, but he’s not about to give Rick the satisfaction of being right, so either way he’s gonna keep it to himself.

The sun’s just about set when the thought crosses his mind again, but then his gaze cuts a few feet to his left, where Beth’s helping Maggie pack up their stuff. Which means he can head out about now, too. Not that he was stickin’ around for Beth…

Whatever. He’s just never gonna say shit to Rick again. That’s the real lesson he can take from all this, end of.

Rick’s not paying him any mind, anyway. Sitting in a lawn chair right next to him, but he’s too busy talking to Michonne, so Daryl’s eyes can look wherever they want for however long and there’s not gonna be anybody who notices enough to be a dick about it.

When the temperature dropped maybe an hour ago, Beth had pulled a cover-up over her head, over that blue or green thing that might do more damage to Daryl’s head than the polka-dot dress did, and that’s saying something. Actually, he’s not faring much better with the cover-up either. It hits her mid-thigh, dips low at the collar and droops off her shoulders, toeing some bullshit line between modesty and Daryl thinkin’ about kissing the curve of her neck and —

Jesus, but when’s he ever thought about kissing anyone’s anywhere? And yet he’s thought about Beth’s everywhere.

Fuck it. He taps a cigarette out of the habitual pack in his pocket. Doesn’t light it, just holds onto it because it steadies his twitching fingers.

He hears Zach talking to Beth. Kid’s been at it all day, he might be worse than Carl — maybe worse than Daryl, though he gives himself some credit because at least he hasn’t been all that obvious about it (though that might not be any better than it is bad, Daryl doesn’t fuckin’ know anymore). Beth’s nice enough, always is; Daryl might think she likes the kid, too, if she hadn’t told him otherwise. She _should_ like him, should wanna go out with Zach, but Daryl’s not gonna pretend to himself that he’d be alright with it. It’d do him some good, bring him back to some level of normalcy, but fuck it. That’s not what he wants.

God damn, but he’s never gonna get rid of this headache if he keeps talkin’ to himself in circles like this.

“Sorry, Zach,” Beth’s letting him down easy. “Tomorrow’s no good, I’m, uh —”

“Told her I’d teach ‘er how to ride the bike,” Daryl cuts in. Out of nowhere, yeah, but not as far as he’s concerned. He's been livin’ with this shit in his head for so long it’s a wonder he hasn’t jumped in ‘til now. Plus, the girl’s teeth are on the verge of more nervous chattering if nobody came to her rescue, and who else’d think to?

He looks at the pair of them over his shoulder. “Been on my ass ‘bout it f’r weeks. Jus’ tryna shut ‘er up for awhile.”

“Oh, uh, alright. Good luck with that.” Zach grins, like it really don’t bother him none and maybe it shouldn’t. As if Daryl knows, though, since Zach askin’ her out bothered him enough to butt in. “I’ll see you around, Beth. Maybe shoot me a text when you get back tomorrow?”

“Oh — sure.”

No sooner has Zach excused himself than Beth’s got her skinny arms around Daryl’s shoulders, too caught up to do anything but lean over his chair and hug him from behind, jabbering about how she knew he’d cave sooner or later, she _knew_ _it_ and _thank_ _you_ and probably a dozen other things that go right over his head. He stiffens at first, but when her arms lock tighter around him it makes him relax some.

It shouldn’t be like that, Daryl doesn’t like to be touched, but it’s never been so bad when Beth does it. It’s never been much, just a hand on his arm to get his attention, so this is more by far but it’s not enough, either — like he wants it to be more. Like she can touch him however she wants and he’d be alright with that.

‘Cause maybe it’s not about being touched, maybe it’s not about what she looked like walkin’ around in that bikini all day — maybe it’s just… He doesn’t feel like he’s being suffocated when she’s got her arms around him. She's warm, smells like sunscreen and pool water and charcoal from the grill, and there's nothing he don't like about her. She makes him feel like he can’t breathe most’a the time, but when it’s like this, he feels like he’s allowed to want whatever comes next, like taking another breath isn’t just about surviving. Like there’s more to it than that.

Jesus fuckin’ Christ. He needs to shake that shit off right now. Doesn’t even goddamn know what’s goin’ through his head. Giving himself the space to think about Beth doesn’t mean giving himself leeway to be such a damn moron.

But that sunscreen smells real good, lingerin’ on her skin like it does, so he can’t be as mad about it as he's tryna be. Not even close.

Daryl flicks the cigarette between his fingers as he looks sideways at her, where her chin’s tucked into his shoulder and he can feel the curve of her smile against his cheek. _Shit._ “Jus’ saved y’r ass, so ya gonna let me smoke this, this time.”

“Just the one,” Beth says, like she really thinks he’s gonna do what she says (he is, but that’s… not the point). She plants a smacking kiss somewhere in his stubble. “Thank you.”

She’s gotta stop thanking him for shit he wants to do. Wouldn’t do anything unless he wanted. He wonders if he’s gonna have to tell her that before she’ll put it together for herself. Or maybe it’s just her manners talkin’ when she tells him all those things he don’t deserve.

He clears his throat, thankful it’s dark enough at least she might not notice his blush. She’s had to’ve noticed it before, but maybe he’ll get lucky this time.

“G’on, girl, get the hell outta here.” Daryl reaches ‘round his chair to smack lightly against her calf. Christ god damn it, but she's soft. 

He doesn’t know why he does that, why he touched her, any more’n he knows why he interrupted Zach a minute ago, just that he wanted to or he felt like he had to, felt like he should. She touched him and he feels okay about touching her, too. Maybe it’s just that easy. It’d be real fuckin’ nice if something was easy in all this.

“An’ you better be dressed t’morrow when I show up, y’hear?” he adds not a second later, when she’s let him go, equal parts a good and sorry thing. His eyes drop pointedly to her bare knees. “Cover up them chicken legs or the exhaust’s gonna burn ‘em righ’ up.”

She responds with a mock salute. “Yes, sir, Mr. Dixon.”

He calls her a smartass and figures she was right — he really does call her that a lot, but it’s never been more than she’s earned. The thought that she could be flirting with him crosses his mind, but Daryl makes sure it’s a fleeting one, otherwise he’s gonna go catatonic from shock or some shit like that; point is, he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Can’t handle much of anything when Beth’s the one givin’ it to him. It’s bad enough he finally agreed to take her out on the bike — even though it was more to get Zach off her case for a day, because she’d been halfway to panicking when Rick brought it up earlier, but whatever the reason Daryl’s not gonna go back on his word.

He tells himself that’s what it is, that he just sort of promised Beth he’d let her on the back of his brother’s motorcycle and he couldn’t disappoint her by taking it back. Couldn’t embarrass her by saying it was only so she didn’t have to go out for a date when she’d rather not, but she’s too nice to say no. He knows how to drive the bike, he’s not as reckless as Merle and he’s got an extra helmet and he can keep her safe. He tells himself it was the decent thing to do, because Beth’s too decent to let a boy down when he’s sweet on her.

(_Decent_’s probably not the word for that. Maybe she can be a little bit of a pushover, but she’s never been with Daryl so he doesn’t think that’s it. She’s not much for heartbreakin’, that’s all.)

He tells himself it’s alright, that he’s just doin’ what her daddy thanked him for earlier — lookin’ out for her, being there when she needs somebody.

He tells himself it’s got nothing to do with that damn stupid haunting thought-consuming dream. And it shouldn’t be, ‘cause it’s not like he’s actually gonna _do_ any of that to her, that’s not what this is. That sort of thing, it’s never been what this is about, so he tells himself, assures himself, that he’s still not the worst sort of man just for offering — _caving_, like Beth said — to what she’d been asking him to do. She wanted to go out on that old Harley and he was finally gonna let her.

He tells himself all of this and he believes it because it’s true. But… Alright, so he’d be a liar if he said it didn’t have nothin’ to do with wanting Beth’s arms around him. He can still feel them now, her hands locked right above his heart. He’d be a liar if he said he didn’t want to feel that again, to know what it’s like to be held onto like she does — tight, and like she means it, like she don’t think twice about it.

It’s good. Effortless. Like it’s supposed to be this way.

In the end, Daryl ends up lightin’ up that cigarette. _Just the one_, but he needs somethin’ to get his head on right.

(Not that it works. But.

(There’s no _but_. It don’t work and that’s that, and Beth’d probably tell him ‘I told you so’ if he gave her the chance to say anything at all.

(He’d probably be okay with that, too.)


	6. wrap your legs ‘round these velvet rims

He should’ve seen it comin’. She’d had her arms around him, had her lips pressed to his cheek, a breath away from his mouth. She’d smelled like coconut oil and she’d asked him if he ever wanted to fall in love.

It’s no small wonder he spends all night dreamin’ that he’s kissing her.

It’s not like last time, when he’d got caught up in dreaming about making her come, hot and restless and panting with want. He still feels that like a dull ache in his chest — in his dick, too, if he’s being honest, but he’d sooner tell anybody who wanted to know that he’s in love with Beth rather than admit to how bad he wants to fuck her.

(Not that he is. In love with her, that is, it’s not… It can’t be that. He won’t even think about that. ‘Cause no matter how messed up it got him in the head, wanting to fuck her is something he can understand. Anything else, he just can’t go there. It’s too hard — but fuck if he’ll ever admit that out loud, either.)

Daryl’s night is spent in something like a half-sleep, a daze of cloudy thoughts of not being alone in his bed. It’s not up against the motorcycle, not Beth in her polka-dot dress and bare feet and whispered words in his ear; it’s tangled up in his sheets and he doesn’t even know what she’s wearing. All he knows is he can smell her, feel her, soft skin, soft lips, the soft touch of her fingers running through his hair. Soft mouth, soft sighs, soft laughter as she coaxes him with her lips to kiss her harder if he wants to.

And he wants to, ‘course he does. He wants to kiss her any way he can and it’s gonna drive him fucking crazy if he can’t get it out of his head.

Probably a lousy idea to take her out for a ride after that, but Daryl’d said he’d do it so it’s not like he can say no now. More like he doesn’t wanna say no now. He’s gettin’ kinda fed up with tellin’ her no.

So he tells Merle he’ll go have a beer with him this weekend if he’ll loan Daryl the bike.

“Will ya pay my tab if I don’t ask ya what f’r?” Merle wants to know, and that’s the best deal Daryl’s gonna get out of him, so he agrees.

Gonna cost him a pretty fuckin’ penny, but it’s better than giving up what’s left of his dignity if his brother found out he was taking Beth out. Lesser of two evils and all that shit, whatever, Daryl’ll take what he can get.

Beth’s waiting for him on the front porch when he pulls up the dusty dirt drive to the farm. She’s in jeans like he told her to be, boots and a loose T-shirt that’s not gonna do her much good, but he’d planned ahead for that.

He swings off the bike to dig in the compartment under the seat. Beth skips down the steps to meet him, ponytail bouncin’ because that’s just Beth — all bouncin’ and bubbly all the time, so much that sometimes Daryl thinks it’s weird as hell that he wants her like he does, but he’s never been able to figure out the _why_ and at this point it don’t seem worth it to know. He’s goin’ to, anyway, so what’s the point in wonderin’?

“Your daddy alrigh’ with this?” he says when Beth’s reached him. He’s never been any good with _hello_’s, _how-ya-doin_’s, might as well get straight to it. He’s been worried a little bit about what Hershel might have to say about this, besides.

“Said if I break my leg, you’ll hafta work full-time on the farm to make up for it,” Beth informs him cheerfully, big smile and all.

Shit, Daryl don’t think he’d be able to make it up to _himself_ if Beth wound up in a cast, and not just ‘cause it’d mean one of her legs’d be wrapped up in plaster. Her legs look too good for that.

Not that he’s been looking at her legs or noticing them at all or thinking about them, but — alright, so he has, but even if he hadn’t he still wouldn’t want to see Beth hurt on his account.

He just snorts in response, and pulls out what he’d been looking for from the compartment.

“Here.” He reaches out, taps the jacket against her arm. “Figured y’ wouldn’ have one’a these.”

It’s a faded old (probably fake) leather jacket, worse for wear than the one Daryl’s got now but it’ll do. Merle’d given it to him, when he was somethin’ like fifteen. Back then he figured his brother had stole it or won it off somebody in a fight, and his opinion on it hasn’t changed. Doesn’t really matter any which way, the thing hasn’t fit him in a long time but he could never seem to throw it out. And now… Now he kinda wants to see Beth wearin’ it.

When she is, he thinks his heart might be stuck in his throat. Which is a real pussy thing to think, so Daryl figures it’s a good thing nobody he knows can read minds since he can’t shake this shit before it’s already in his head.

“How d’I look?” she asks. Her cheeks are pink as she straightens the collar. “Like my skinny ass won’t fall off the bike, after all?”

“Watch y’r damn mouth, girl.”

“Just sayin’ what you already told me.”

“Yeah, well, I got a nasty fuckin’ mouth.” Daryl drops the spare helmet into her hands next. “Put that on.”

“Didn’t realize you were gonna be dressin’ me today,” Beth snarks as she squashes the helmet over her ponytail.

Fuck, he wishes she wouldn’t say shit like that. Makes him think about all the clothes he’d rather get her out of. Then again… His gaze flicks over the way his old jacket looks on her, a little too long in the sleeves and a little too big everywhere else, but it was his and now it’s _on her_ and if that doesn’t fuck him up straight to an early grave, well, then, chances are good he’ll live forever ‘cause ain’t nothin’ else gonna be able to kill him if this doesn’t.

“Lemme do tha’.” He tugs at the unfastened buckle dangling by her jaw, the one she’s fumbling with. Their hands knock together and a buzz shoots up his spine. “Don’t wan’ it too loose or nothin’.”

“Think I can’t do it right?” Beth teases as he buckles it up.

Daryl huffs. It’s sorta like a laugh. “Think y’r ‘bout jumpin’ outta y’r damn skin.”

“I’m excited.”

“Don’ I know it.” He gives the strap another tug, this time to test its tightness. “That alrigh’?”

“Yeah, perfect.” She smiles up at him. He can just about taste the spearmint toothpaste tippin’ off her tongue when she talks. “Thanks, Daryl.”

“Yeah, well…” He scuffs the toe of his boot into the dirt. “Not like I got a choice.”

Beth rolls her eyes. Not unkindly, Beth never does anything unkindly, Daryl knows that well enough by now. “Just can’t stand it when anybody says somethin’ nice to you, can ya?”

“Nah. Jus’ you.” The corner of his mouth twitches. Christ, is he flirting with her? He might be, but he doesn’t actually know so does it even count? “Such a smartass most’a the time, can’t trust it when y’ got somethin’ nice t’ say t’ me.”

“I’m plenty nice to you.”

“Yeah, y’r a real good girl, Greene,” Daryl drawls. He taps his knuckles smartly against the backend of the bike’s seat. “Now get y’r ass up here and let’s go ‘fore I change my mind.”

Beth’s looking at him a little funny, cheeks pink again like he embarrassed her or… Or maybe he did something that’s making her feel the way she usually makes him feel? Daryl doesn’t know where that thought comes from, but there it is and he hasn’t got a clue what he might’ve done to get her lookin’ like that. He’d _like_ to know, sure enough, so that maybe he could do it again sometime, but —

“What?” he says, and that seems to snap her out of it.

“Nothin’.” All bright and innocent, but her face goes pinker.

He could wonder why, think about it ‘til he’s given himself another headache, but there’s no time for it now. No time for it when they’re both settled on the seat, her thighs flexed around his hips and her arms clasped around his middle. The warmth he feels has got nothin’ to do with the engine, nothin’ to do with the sun, and if his body set on fire right now there wouldn’t be any hiding the reason why.

He kicks the engine up, tells Beth to hang on tight and hopes it ain’t gonna kill him. But, again, if lookin’ at her in that soft worn leather thing of his didn’t do it, he figures he’ll be alright. He’ll live, at least, ‘til maybe she kisses too close to his mouth again ‘cause he don’t think he could take another one of those without keeling over then and there. Surprised he didn’t do it last night, but that might’a been the sheer shock of it all keepin’ his heart goin’.

Right about now, it’s racing somethin’ fierce. Beth can probably feel it, and Daryl’s gotta wonder what she makes of it.

Gettin’ her on the back of his (Merle’s, whatever, who gives a shit when it’s him she’s got her arms holdin’ tight to?) bike just makes him think about how he could get her off up against it, same as he started to in that dream. He’d really like to know how that ends. Been imaginin’ it well enough, but he wants to… feel it. Wants to know what it’d feel like to make her feel good.

The vibrations of the bike beneath them scoot Beth closer to him, her chest pressed to his back at every sharp turn he takes. His hands clench around the handles as he steers them straight and steady, even as the blood pounds in his ears and rushes further, further down.

His fingers tense again, cramping up but at least his palms aren’t sweaty so they’re not in danger of slipping. He’s in danger of a whole mess’a other things, sure, but at least Beth’s not gonna end up with a broken leg just because he’s thinking about yankin’ her in front of him so his hands got something better to do than take another couple of calluses off the throttle.

Yeah, he’s _thinkin’_ about it, but somehow his grip’s steady, anyway. Probably because Beth’s holding on so tight he couldn’t get her to move no matter how bad he wanted to, and part of him likes her right where she is.

He drives around the back roads they take most late afternoons. It’s all the same view, same fields, blooming and barren alike, same patches of woods, red dirt and gravel, dust clouds collecting at their ankles and disappearing around the next bend in the road. But it’s different, too, on the bike than it is in the truck — it’s all open air, Beth’s feet planted firmly behind his instead of up on his dash, no music but the wind whipping in their ears and Beth’s breath hot and dry on the back of his neck. He can feel her little bursts of laughter whenever he takes a turn or swerves around a bump.

Christ, but he likes the way that feels.

When they pause at a stop sign, he raises his voice enough to be heard over the rumble of the engine. “Alrigh’ back there?”

“Oh my _god_, yes,” she laughs, but his gut clenches ‘cause that’s what she says when he thinks about her late at night, too.

They don’t stop again ‘til Daryl thinks he’s got the situation in his jeans under control, and even then it’s not a sure thing when he pulls into a gas station. He needs a couple bottles of water to douse himself with.

“Be right back,” he tells Beth when he parks. “Stay put.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, just like she did yesterday and it does the same goddamn thing to him.

When he comes back outside with two water bottles and a fresh pack of cigarettes he’s not gonna smoke in front of her, Beth’s loosened her helmet so the straps dangle at her chin. Her skin’s rubbed a little red. Daryl makes a mental note not to strap her in too tight next time.

She starts to get up when he comes closer, but he stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He shoves her back down in her seat. “Told y’ to stay put.”

Beth sticks her tongue out at him. “What for?”

“‘Cause you ain’t gonna be able to stand straight, not aft’r takin’ a ride that long y’r firs’ time.”

A sharp giggle escapes her then. Daryl scowls — he knows what he said, just didn’t mean for it to sound like that — and slaps one of the bottles into her hand. Not too hard or nothin’, and she’s still laughing at him, anyway. He thinks about lighting a cigarette just to piss her off now, but more’n likely she’ll just snap it in half so he doesn’t bother.

“Thanks,” Beth says after she downs half her water in about one go. She hangs on to her helmet while she does it, too, so it doesn’t slip off her head.

Daryl leans against the bike next to her. His thigh bumps her knee. “Quit thankin’ me f’r shit.”

She scrunches her nose at him. “Why you gotta be so difficult all the time?”

“Why you gotta be s’ damn skinny?” he shoots back, not because it’s relevant but because he wants to change the subject. “Swear I thought I left y’r ass on th’ side’a the road least a dozen times on th’ way out here.”

“Oh, shut up, ya did not.”

He smirks when she kicks him. “Nah, y’ had a death grip on me th’ whole time. Probably got y’r scratch marks all ov’r me.”

God _damn it_, what’d he say that for? Daryl about chokes when he takes a long pull of water to avoid saying anything else that’s gonna come out wrong.

Beth’s not laughing at him this time. She’s looking at him, kinda like she did at the farm when he picked her up, but not all that flustered this time. She’s lookin’ at him like… Well, he doesn’t know, really, ‘cause he can’t imagine what’s going on inside her head. Lookin’ at him like she’s wondering something.

She’s done it a few times before — in the truck, mostly, or sometimes when she catches him lookin’ at her — and it always makes Daryl feel like she can see right through him. Like she’s gotta know every last little thought he has about her, ‘cause there’s too many for him to hide.

Her voice pulls him out of his own head when she asks, “What changed your mind?”

“‘Bout what?”

“You didn’t wanna take me out. On the bike, I mean,” she’s quick to add. She toys with a thread hanging from the sleeve of the jacket he gave her, then with the bracelets she’s wearing right underneath. “What changed your mind?”

“Annoyed me into ‘t.”

“That’s all?” she presses, and she deserves the truth. “Nothin’ to do with Zach?”

Daryl shrugs, looks at his feet. “Said y’ didn’ like ‘im like that. So.”

He rubs at his nose, then drops his hand to pat down his pockets for the cigarettes he just bought. He’s still not gonna smoke in front of her, but it’s good to know he’s got ‘em, like an anchor or something like that.

“I was gonna say thanks again,” Beth admits with a wry little grin Daryl catches from the corner of his eye. “But you probably don’t want me to.”

“No use thankin’ me for shit I wanna do,” he mumbles. Doesn’t even consciously think about how much he wants to punch himself in the face afterwards; at this point that’s just his default.

Damn, he’s just telling this girl all his secrets today, ain’t he? Might as well push her up against the brick wall of the gas station, at the rate he’s goin’. Get that taste of her mouth he’s been thinkin’ so much about.

But there’s other things he’s been thinkin’ about, too. He turns his head back towards Beth, to look at her without pretending like he’s not. More things he wants to know. Thing about Beth is, she’ll tell the truth about whatever you wanna ask her.

So, he asks.

“What’d y’ wanna do this so bad f’r, anyway?” He nudges the bike. “Go out f’r a ride on one’a these?”

She smiles, like she’s glad he brought it up. “Well, ‘cause I never done it before.”

“That it?”

“You think that’s not a good enough reason to wanna do somethin’?”

“Ain’t done a lotta things.” Daryl shrugs again, chews on his thumbnail. “Doesn’t mean I wanna do ‘em.”

“What about things you do want, then, huh?” Beth says, and it almost sounds like a challenge, ‘specially when she sits up straighter and her leg presses firmly against his. “You ever gonna do those?”

“Not up t’ me.”

“Who’s it up to, then?”

_You._

He’s real fuckin’ lucky that’s the one thing today that doesn’t spill outta his dumbass mouth without his permission. He couldn’t come back from that shit if he tried, and honestly he doesn’t know that he’d _wanna_ try to take it back if he finally put all his cards on the table.

He straightens up and talks to his feet again. Coughs, tosses their empty waters into a nearby trash can. “Should get goin’.”

“Daryl —”

“Getcha helmet back on, g’on.” He taps against the side of it before he snaps it back in place himself. Makes sure to give her a little more breathing room this time.

She mutters some about what a grump he is, but it’s no worse than she’s ever said before and he knows she’s teasing. He kinda (really) wants to kiss that giggle off her lips, but he don’t get to do that right now. Instead, he gives the bridge of her nose a squeeze and hops back on the bike before she can deck him in the stomach, which he’s pretty sure she’d do if given the chance.

She doesn’t sock him, though. Maybe holds on tighter than she needs to on the roundabout drive back to the farm, but it’s not like Daeyl’s about to complain about that.

The sun’s still high when they pull back up the Greenes’ drive, but clouds have started rolling in so it’s not as bright as the morning had been. It’s getting cooler, too. The sweat’s drying on his forehead and Beth smells like that sorta fruity perfume she wears, the one that lingers in the cab of his truck so that he’s never gonna get the thing detailed again if it means he loses that scent.

When he cuts the engine, ditches his helmet, and climbs off, Beth tries to follow suit. A bad case of jelly legs has her stumbling, and Daryl can’t even tell her off for it when he’s got to put his arms around her to hold her still.

“The hell did I tell y’?” Alright, so he can still tell her off some, but she would’ve fallen flat on her face if he hadn’t been there to catch her.

“Thought you were just bein’ dramatic.”

He snorts, prods her gently so she’s leaning against the bike, just like she was in his dream but also not, and anyway that’s not a thought he needs crossing his mind right now. Thought never does him any good, but he’s not exactly lookin’ to get hard when Beth’s close enough to feel it.

_Jesus_, he needs to think about something else.

To distract himself, he loosens the straps on her helmet to take it off. Beth holds fast to the lapels of his leather vest to keep herself upright, but she’s got enough energy to grimace when he pulls her headgear off.

“My hair’s gonna be awful.”

“Give it a rest, Greene.” Daryl sets the helmet down on the seat behind her. Her hair really is a wreck, but it don’t make no difference, far as he’s concerned. “Still gonna look like the pretty li’l thing y’ are.”

Beth blinks, her cheeks bloom pink again, and Daryl realizes what the fuck he just said. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Shoot —” The sigh he expels is rough, and he looks anywhere but her. The house, the barn, the tops of his boots and hers.

Her hands fall from his chest to tangle with his fingers, to give them a squeeze to get him to look at her again. That’s the sort of thing she does, always these gentle little touches to coax somethin’ outta you. That’s how she’s gotten so much outta him.

“Y’ know y’ are,” he mumbles. “Ever look in a mirror ‘fore?”

She must think that’s awful funny, but Daryl can’t be bothered by his own embarrassment, not when she’s doin’ that thing with her hands. Her fingertips run lightly up his palms, down to the pulse hammering faster with every sweep of her fingers across his rough-hewn skin. He watches the patterns she draws without even seeming to realize she’s doin’ it, like touching him’s a habit, second nature. Like she does this all the time, and always because she wants to.

He swallows thickly before he follows her lead, rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles as she continues to skate her touch all over the lines and ridges that cut his hands so much deeper than hers. ‘Cause hers are soft — there’s a callous here and there from working on the farm, but he bets she rubs ‘em down with some sweet-smelling lotion every night to keep them feelin’ like they do.

“You alrigh’?” he asks their hands, his voice nothing but a scratch in his throat. Doesn’t matter, though; she’s close enough to hear him, close enough he bets she could taste the stale coffee on his breath.

“Yeah.” He can taste the mint on hers, a hint of sticky cherry lip balm. His thumb brushes over the beads on her bracelets. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He glances up through the thin fringe of his hair to look at her, to find her lookin’ at him in that way — that way he doesn’t have an explanation for, just this sense of familiarity because he’s pretty sure that’s the way he looks at her, too.

She’s so close now, probably closer than he’s ever been to her. He could count the freckles skipping across her nose, scattered underneath her eyes, if he wanted to, if he could remember any number past three, ‘cause there’s three freckles right there in his line of vision and he can’t think past that. Can’t think of more than her dusky blonde eyelashes and how her eyes look darker than their usual bright blue. Can’t remember if she always had that tiny scar at the edge of her eyebrow or if maybe that’s new.

Can’t feel anything that’s not her fingers dancing up and down his hands, the way they curl together lightly, only to come apart again so their fingers can keep skimming over the other’s hands. He can’t taste anything but her candy-coated breath bursting against his lips. Can’t remember what it’s like to not be touchin’ her and all he can think about is what would happen if he touched more of her, all of her, right now ‘cause he thinks she wants him to and maybe, finally, he could, if —

If the screen door didn’t just stutter open a couple’a yards away.

“Hey!” Maggie calls out in greeting. Her voice cuts the air like a knife, but she’s grinning so Daryl figures he’s not a dead man yet. “Beth got a case’a jelly legs, does she? I told you that’d happen. You never listen.”

“I’m _fine_, Maggie,” Beth says, but she’s a little too breathless to be believable. Or maybe that’s just Daryl’s own foggy head talkin’. He doesn’t let her go, though, just in case she’s still fit to stumble. “You’re exaggeratin’.”

“Oh, yeah? That why Mr. Dixon’s about to haul your butt up here?”

“I can walk,” Beth insists. “You best stay over there, Maggie, I don’t need you babyin’ me.”

Maggie holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender and walks slowly, backwards, into the house. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“God dang it.” She says it mostly to herself, then shuffles her feet in the dirt to get her bearings. “Better go, I guess.”

There’s something like a lead weight in his chest, but Daryl nods. He can still manage that much. His hands wrap more firmly around Beth’s as he helps her to stand to her full height. It’s not that big a change, she’s a little thing, but it’s good he doesn’t have to carry her up those porch steps. Doesn’t know if he could just drop her at the door like that.

“Thanks again,” she says after a step or two away from him. She brandishes a finger when he opens his mouth. “Don’t start, alright? Just lemme say thanks, Daryl, god.”

He shouldn’t be givin’ her sass a smile, but his lips quirk. Seems like they’ve got a mind of their own when it comes to Beth. His damn stupid mouth just wants her too much.

“Oh — here —” Beth pauses again on her way to the house, starts to take the jacket off, but Daryl stops her with just a shake of his head.

“Nah, tha’s y’rs. Don’t fit me no more.”

“Oh, Daryl, that’s real sweet, but I couldn’t —”

“Yeah, y’ can,” he interrupts her. He clears his throat, sticks his thumbnail back between his teeth. “I want y’ t’.”

Beth looks like she wants to say something else to that, but if she stays just a few paces away from him like she is, he’s gonna haul up and kiss her, even with Maggie standin’ right inside the front door. He’s gonna kiss that girl like nobody else is around, and it’s gonna be the last thing he does before her big sister gets him with the shotgun he knows Hershel keeps in the hall closet.

Wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, so long as he got to kiss Beth first. But if he does it once, Daryl knows he’s gonna want to do it again. He’s not gonna want to stop.

So he doesn’t let Beth say another word. He jerks his chin towards the house and tells her, “Get goin’ or she’s gonna yell at me next.”

“Alright, alright.” Beth tosses him one last smile. “See ya?”

“In the truck next time, yeah. Y’ had y’r fun.”

“Ugh!” She spins dramatically on her heel and calls over her shoulder, “You ain’t _no_ fun, Daryl Dixon!”

He doesn’t know why or how he even gets the words out — but then, he doesn’t know why or how anything at all where Beth’s concerned, so that’s nothin’ new — Daryl shouts after her, “Jacket looks better on y’, anyway. Goes good with that smartass mouth.”

He kicks the motorcycle into gear, but Beth’s answering laugh is enough to cut through the rumble of the engine — and a much better sound, besides. It’s almost like he can still feel it against the back of his neck, like she’s still on the bike behind him, and that’s enough, too.

‘Cause that lead weight’s already gone, and now it’s just her laugh keepin’ him company on the drive home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: ehehehehehehe
> 
> (ps the next two chapters are ones i’ve been looking forward to since i first envisioned this fic, and i’m so excited to share them with you guys!! that being said, it might be a wee little bit before the next one’s ready, as there’s quite a bit of content to it, but rest assured it’s on its way!)


	7. hey, blue eyes, what you doing tonight?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: THREE THINGS
> 
> 1\. for beth’s pov on her developing relationship with daryl, please PLEASE I INSIST read gus’ companion piece, ‘I Don’t Want Anybody Else’ (it’s linked to this fic, so easy pickin’s). give her some love because that’s my wife and she deserves it. 
> 
> 2\. uhhh remember how i said last chapter that i was looking forward to the next two? well that’s still technically true, because i wound up splitting this chapter into two parts of its own (because i FELT LIKE IT, that’s why), so instead of being stoked for chapters 7 and 8, we’re now HYPE for 9 as well.
> 
> 3\. okay so listen... i’m getting lazy with replying to comments (my laptop’s like wiggin’ out on me too, i can never get the reply box to work idk it keeps disappearing and i’m not a WIZARD idk what’s happening) but i am still going to TRY and i love every single goddamn one of you and would tattoo your comments on my body but even at 5’11” i don’t know that i have enough room because y’all are THAT BEAUTIFUL okay? okay.
> 
> now. to business. —

“Ya need to get laid.”

Daryl knocks his bottle against the sticky tabletop, if only because it won’t do him any good to crack it upside his brother’s head. It’s worked a time or two in bar fights before, but never against Merle. Not that Daryl’s tried, mind, but the point is he’s not gonna.

It’s been, what, twenty minutes since they got here? Already he’s regretting the deal he struck, to go out for a couple of beers in exchange for borrowing Merle’s bike a few days ago. Though he can’t regret it entirely, because. Well.

Beth looks real good in his old jacket, s’all.

The picture of her all wrapped up in it has had to last him, as he hasn’t seen her since. Not because he doesn’t want to or because he’s trying to avoid her again (no, that train’s well and truly left the station by now, he’s never gonna be able to avoid her again). But he picked up some overtime at the shop, mostly in anticipation of whatever tab Merle’s plannin’ on racking up tonight, so he hasn’t had time for much else.

“Don’t,” Daryl disagrees with his brother’s all-too-regular observation. “Need y’ to shut y’r trap, maybe, tha’s all I need.”

That gets a raspy chuckle out of Merle, but truth be told it’s not the most honest thing Daryl’s ever said. He doesn’t need to ‘get laid,’ no, he’s never needed that, no matter how many times Merle says it and no matter how many nights he wakes up in a fit of cold sweat ‘cause he’d been dreaming about Beth again.

Kissing her, mostly. It’s always mostly kissing her.

Not always just on her mouth, though, not always on that pretty pink mouth. Sometimes — lots of times — it’s on her pretty pink pussy, too. Head buried between her legs, hands clamped down on her thighs to hold her still, hold her open for his hungry tongue. She twists her fingers in his hair when he does that to her, bright painted nails scraping against his scalp. Her body writhes beneath him, she shakes and mumbles his name and things like _don’t stop_ and _so good_.

And it _is_ good. So good that it feels real, ‘til a car horn or Daryl’s alarm wakes him up and he’s gotta face the cold hard fact that it’s not, and he’s alone in his bed instead of layin’ nestled in the cradle of Beth’s legs.

Merle’s still not completely right, though. Daryl doesn’t need to get laid — he needs to fuck Beth. Very specifically _Beth_. He’s not even gonna give himself a hard time over it anymore; fact is, he’s too damn tired, and pretending otherwise and beating himself up hasn’t changed anything. He still wants her. Might even get up the nerve to do something about it, too.

Maybe that’s just the beer talking, Daryl considers as he takes another pull from his bottle. Or maybe it’s the memory of her arms tight around his waist, knees up around his thighs. The way she took his hands and seemed to be mappin’ the lines of his palms into her memory, the way it seemed like she wanted his hands other places, too, than just in her own.

He’s thought about it a lot these past few days, alright, and the more he has, the more he thinks he’s not the only one feelin’ the way he is. Like maybe she feels it, too.

He’s also thought a lot about the way her cheeks went pink when he called her a _good_ _girl_. Thinks his dreams might be getting the better of him there, but… Well, it’s not for nothin’, he’ll say that much. Not something he needs to be thinking about in the middle of the bar, either, unless he wants to be the sort of guy who jerks off in a public restroom, and he _doesn’t_, even if it’s because maybe he’s in love or —

No. No, he already told himself he wasn’t gonna go there. He’s already damn near obsessed, thinkin’ about touching her, he doesn’t need anything else on his mind right now. One fuckin’ disaster at a time, alright?

He offers Merle a cigarette, then lights one up himself. Been thinkin’ about quitting, but whenever he thinks about why (_Beth_, it’s always Beth), his fingers start twitching for a smoke. So it ain’t goin’ well, sue him.

“Hey,” Merle gets his attention, jerks his chin in the direction of the bar. “Ain’t that your li’l girlfriend over there?”

“Huh?”

“You know the one. How many damn girls you talk to, huh?” He guffaws at his own piss-poor joke. “Tha’ one who gets you on the phone, y’know, says ‘here, boy!’ an’ you go runnin’. Pussy-whipped and ya ain’t even gettin’ no pussy, _hooo_, boy.” He snorts again, like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Officer Friendly’s li’l babysitter.”

_What? _Daryl turns in his seat to look for whatever it is his brother’s seeing, ‘cause no way is it actually —

Nope. Yeah. It is.

That’s Beth, standing over near the bar, with a braid tied into her messy ponytail, in cut-offs and buckled-up boots with a wedge on ‘em that look like hell to walk in but also make her legs look about a mile long, and a tank top under the jacket he gave to her. She’s got the sleeves rolled up some, baring her forearms and the bunch’a bracelets on her wrist.

That’s another picture he’s gonna be saving for when he needs it, but right now she’s here and it’s _real_ and it feels like a punch to the gut, but in a good way, somehow.

She’s talking to some guy, or maybe it’s more like some guy’s talking to her. Beth don’t exactly look like she minds, but that’s the politest smile Daryl’s ever seen and he thinks it means she’s about to bite the guy’s head off.

No wonder why, either, when Daryl realizes who he is.

He doesn’t know Gorman, but Rick does, and he’s always sayin’ how he’d fire him outright if he was local. But he works for Atlanta PD, a ways out from their little town. Daryl would wonder what the hell he’s doing here, but it ain’t hard to guess. He doesn’t know Gorman, no, but he’s known plenty’a men like him. Easier to flash your shiny badge at some doe-eyed little small town girl to impress her. Them city girls know better, but a sweet little thing like Beth — or the sweet little thing most people think she is, ‘cause Beth don’t have much occasion to show her teeth, but Daryl’s one of the few that knows she can rip you a new one if she wants, and it’s startin’ to look like she wants to right about now — well, she looks like an easy target, is the thing. And even if she’s not, really, she’s still a helluva lot smaller than anybody Daryl knows. She needs lookin’ after.

He’s not gonna _say that_ to her, hell no, but he’s up out of his seat and on his way over before he can come up with some dumbass reason not to.

Beth doesn’t see him coming, so she jumps a little when he slides a hand across the small of her back. She relaxes when she sees it’s him, though Gorman doesn’t look so thrilled about it. But like Daryl gives a fuck about _that_.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says to her, and he doesn’t really mean for the endearment to slip out, but it’s probably better that it does, all things considered.

Her eyes widen just enough so he knows she caught on, but all she says back is a “Hey” and even that sounds real sweet tippin’ off her tongue when she looks at him.

Before he can nudge her towards his table, though, tell her to go on and sit with Merle, ‘cause his brother’s a dick but he ain’t gonna hurt her or nothin,’ so that he can exchange a few words with _Officer Gorman_, the man himself speaks up.

“Well hey, there, if it ain’t Daryl Dixon.” He grins, all teeth and something slimy sneaking out between the cracks when he talks. “Got your brother here with you?”

“Don’t you worry about him, he ain’t none’a your damn business.” Daryl doesn’t snap, he growls, but he knows better than to talk shit to a cop. Don’t matter that this isn’t his jurisdiction; dirty cops will try to get away with whatever they want, and Beth’s just exhibit A in this case.

He angles Beth a little ways behind him, so that she can’t hear what he says next — “She ain’t, either.”

Gorman lifts up his hands like he’s surrendering, but he’s still showin’ off his teeth and Daryl wants to knock them out in one good clean punch. “Just talkin’ to her.”

“Better find someone else t’ talk to, then.”

‘Cause Daryl’s done, too, and he doesn’t give Gorman another chance to goad him. Folks are always tryin’ to get under his skin about his brother, and he hadn’t exactly played it cool enough just now for Gorman not to guess that Beth’s a soft spot, too. He’s not gonna let some two-bit beat cop get the best of him, so he turns around, pushes at Beth’s spine to get her going and she doesn’t fight him on it.

They’re well out of earshot when Daryl decides he needs to have a couple of words with her. So his hand slips from her back down — his little finger grazes her ass on accident, but he ain’t gonna think about that right now, no fuckin’ way — so he can tuck two fingers into her belt loop and turn her ‘round to face him.

He turns her a little too hard, ‘cause she about collides with his chest and has to put a hand over his heart to steady herself. Not that that steadies _him_, and she’s gotta be able to feel the way his pulse jolts when she touches him.

Those boots make her taller, tall enough that he could kiss her without bending too much, and if he was allowed to kiss her in the first place. That does something funny to his heartbeat, too.

She’s close now, so he can smell her — smell the tobacco that clings to that soft cracked leather, but it smells like her now, too. Like that fruity spritz of her perfume, like a little bit of air freshener, like… Sweet and a little salty and there’s something else there, something that makes him wonder if her cunt would taste the way she smells right now.

But he doesn’t say any of that. Can’t rightly imagine a time in which he could muster up those words, unless this turns out to be another one of his dreams (and he’s hoping it won’t, because this is already better, in a way).

Instead — “The hell’re you doin’ here?”

“My friends are tryna…” She waggles her eyebrows, all suggestive-like._ “You know.”_

It’d be real fuckin’ cute if he wasn’t so annoyed with her right now. Yeah, maybe her friends are here for the same reason his brother usually is, for the same reason Merle dragged him out tonight — to get drunk, laid, whatever, but those better not be _Beth’s_ reasons.

“Doesn’t answer my question.”

“Sheesh.” She rolls her eyes. “‘Cause I wanted to do somethin’. Told you I never do, so when they called me I thought why not, y’know?”

His grip on her belt loop tightens. He doesn’t think she can actually feel it, ‘til she shifts on her feet once, then twice, and now her hand’s not just touching him, it’s curled in his shirtfront and she’s holding on.

“What the hell kinda somethin’ is sneakin’ into a bar you ain’t old enough to be in?” he wants to know. Wants to know lots of things, but this is the only one she can answer.

Beth snorts. “I didn’t _sneak_. It ain’t exactly hard.”

“Yeah?” Is his thumb stroking along her waistband? Shit. He should stop. “How’s that?”

“Just gotta flirt with whoever’s at the door,” she tells him. “Maggie taught me how, but my friends are better at it ‘cause most’a them don’t start laughing. Sadie’s the best. We just followed her in.”

“Why’s ev’ryone you know such a damn bad influence?” Daryl huffs. He still hasn’t stopped touching the curve of her hip, god damn it. “Now ‘m not gonna be able to let you outta my sight, make sure ya don’t wind up in the drunk tank, that it?”

“Don’t gotta do nothin’ you don’t wanna,” Beth practically sing-songs at him, probably makin’ some kinda fun but he doesn’t get the joke.

Christ, he’s gotta stop touching her before she pokes fun at him for that, too. He doesn’t think she would, but just to be safe…

Well, though, it’s just so easy to touch her now without worryin’ too much about it, ‘cause she’s kissed him on the cheek and they’d spent all afternoon on the bike together and she’d held his hands that way she did afterwards. It feels safe to touch her, even when it makes him think dangerous things about what it’d be like to keep on doing it.

At some point there’s just no turning back. Hanging around Beth like he’s been, that point’s inevitable. Now he’s just gotta see what the hell happens next, he guesses. Have to figure it out as it comes.

“Oh, come on,” Beth says when he keeps scowling at her. “I won’t be any trouble, alright?”

“Countin’ on it.” Finally, Daryl lets her go before he does something stupid like push his hand up her shirt to feel how soft her skin is. He points a finger at her. “Better mind me, girl.”

“Or what?”

“Or I might be fixin’ t’ tell your daddy what you been up to tonight.”

The words don’t faze her, nah, she fucking _smirks_ at him. “You would not.”

Alright, so, no, he wouldn’t, but he was sorta hoping she didn’t know that. Anyway, it’s not totally off the table, since —

“Might have to, ‘f ‘m gonna clock a fuckin’ cop for puttin’ his hands on you.”

Beth huffs, like she’s impatient with this whole line of conversation, or embarrassed, maybe, that he’d had to step in so Gorman would back the hell off. “He didn’t.”

“Don’t give a shit.” Daryl still wants to hit him, and Beth seems to catch on to it because she relents. Brightens some, too, and starts teasing him again.

“Alright, alright. Wouldn’t want you gettin’ arrested.” She taps him on the nose, ‘cause she's just got the nerve to do it. “I’ll be a good girl for you, Mr. Dixon.”

Jesus Christ.

His jaw tightens, clenches, and his hands twitch at his sides like they want to reach out and touch her again, because.

Jesus.

Goddamn.

_Christ._

She did that on purpose. She had to’ve done that on purpose.

He needs another drink. Needs a fuckin’ tranquilizer dart right between the eyes, actually, but he’ll have to make do with a beer.

“C’mon,” he mutters, and nudges her elbow to get her moving so he can keep some space, clear his head, as he leads her towards the table.

Merle’s right where Daryl left him, leaning casually back in the high-top seat, nursing his third beer. He raises an eyebrow as they approach and Daryl tries not to worry about whatever it is he’s gonna say when he makes dull introductions.

“This’s Beth.” He jerks his chin towards the table. “My brother, Merle.”

“Howdy,” Beth says, with that same warm smile she’s got for everybody, because how’s she supposed to know that Merle’s not the type to fall for sweet southern manners like hers?

“Uh-huh.” His eyes flit from her to Daryl. “Why ain’t she got no tits?”

A strangled sound comes from Beth’s throat, like maybe she wants to laugh but maybe she’d rather kick his ass, but not if Daryl gets to him first.

She puts her hands on her hips. “Why ain’t _you_ got no manners?”

“Daryl here got the manners in this family.” Merle tilts his bottle at the other man before he takes a swig. “Me, I got all the good looks.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Beth’s reply drips with sarcasm like molasses, but Merle’s too up his own ass to notice. He wouldn't mind it if he did notice, come to think of it. “You’re a real charmer, Merle Dixon. Wanna tell me what else is wrong with me while ya got me here?”

“Didn’ say anythin’ was wrong whichu, girlie. If my baby brother don’t mind you titless, well, tha’s his business, ain’t it?”

Daryl screws his eyes shut, both to count to ten, which never goddamn works, but also so he very pointedly doesn’t have to look at Beth. What the hell’s she gonna think about what Merle just said?

She, though, takes it in stride, how she takes most anything. “Well, he doesn’t seem to mind you brainless, so I guess he’s used to his company lackin’, huh?”

Daryl huffs a laugh, and cracks an eye open to see Merle honest-to-god _grinning_, which isn’t such an irregular sort of thing, but he’s grinning at Beth even as she mouths off at him, like he’s impressed or something. Maybe he is, ‘cause most people are either scared of him or they wanna hit him, but Beth doesn’t really fall either which way. She’s just talking to him same as she would anybody else.

They’re actually… getting along, Daryl supposes. He doesn’t know whether he likes that or not, but it’s better than the alternative.

He clears his throat. “Where’re those friends’a yours, anyway?”

“Oh.” Beth looks around, scanning the crowd, and she starts pointing out a couple people. “Amy’s over there, I think Sadie already left with someone but I’ll have to check the group chat to make sure. And that there’s Leigh and Lorraine, they’re twins —”

“Twins, huh?” Merle’s grin widens.

She turns that pointer finger on him, waggling it threateningly. “No.”

“Whatchu mean, _no_? Ya jus’ said they’s twins.”

“I mean no, you keep away from them.”

Merle shrugs one shoulder, unaffected. “Whatever you say, blondie, but don’t start cryin’ when they come ta ol’ Merle on their own.”

Daryl shoots him a look before turning back to Beth. “They know you’re alrigh’?”

“Textin’ ‘em now.” Beth flourishes the phone she’s just fished outta her pocket. She clicks it open and smirks. “Lorraine wants to know if y’all got any friends.”

Merle hoots. Daryl rolls his eyes.

“Sayin’ I’m your only one,” Beth explains as she taps out a message, “otherwise she’ll keep at it all night. But she ain’t gonna want to sleep with _me_.”

“Tha’s good.” Merle takes a swig of his drink. “Daryl here ain’t ever been good at sharin’.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Merle —”

“What? You ain’t.” His brother sounds genuinely surprised that Daryl would argue the point, like he don’t realize what he’s suggesting when he damn well _does_. “‘Cept that jacket blondie here’s got on.”

“That’s a nice bike you got, by the way,” Beth pipes up.

Daryl imagines she must think she’s saving him from his embarrassment — or whatever feeling she assumes Merle’s stoking here — but no, nah, she just went and made it worse and if she didn’t look so goddamn pretty standin’ next to him right now Daryl’d wish he’d stayed the hell home tonight.

Merle, though, Merle looks fucking _delighted_.

“Oh, that right?” His eyes shine as they land on the glowing red tips of his brother’s ears. “That’s what you wanted my hog for, huh? Damn, Darylina, didn’t know ya had it in ya. Takin’ the little farmer’s daughter out for a _long_, _hard_ ride.”

Daryl wants to be dead. Just, fucking kill him right now where he stands.

Beth doesn’t seem to mind none. She can give it good as she gets, and it doesn’t sound like she’s rattled in the slightest when she says, almost like she’s bored, “I bet you got girls on the back’a that bike all the time.”

“Yeah, but I’m gettin’ my dick su—”

_“Merle.” _Daryl gnaws at his thumbnail. “Fuck, shut up.”

And for once, he actually does. Looks damn smug about it but, fine, let him so long as he’s not runnin’ his mouth for five seconds.

That’s about how long it lasts, too, ‘til Beth says she’ll be right back, Amy doesn’t have pockets so Beth’s got all her shit and she’s about to head out with some kid who also looks too young to be there, but that ain’t Daryl’s business. Beth’s probably not his business, either, but he watches her walk off towards the front door to make sure Gorman or nobody else gets any ideas.

In turn, Merle’s watching _him_ with that know-it-all smirk. “Ya really are sweet on that girl, aincha?”

Daryl’s not gonna answer that. Which, as it happens, is answer enough — just like it was when Rick found him out. It’s a fuckin’ wonder Beth don’t know, if he’s this obvious every time she’s around.

“Shoot. I was just fuckin’ with ya before. How old is she, anyhow?”

He sucks on his thumbnail again, grumbles, “Nineteen.”

“Not jailbait, then.” That’s good enough for Merle, of course it is. “Good thing. Her tits wouldn’ be worth jail time.”

“Stop talkin’ about her tits, Jesus.”

“Sure, jus’ soon as you quit lookin’ at ‘em.”

“I’m —” Daryl’s about to say he’s not, but that’s not true. It’s not strictly true, either, that he _is_. Not like he’s fixated on them or nothin’. It’s just that he’s been lookin’ at all of her, so he can’t rightly argue even if Merle’s got the wrong idea. “Jus’ shut up, would y’?”

He doesn’t this time, but at least he doesn’t mention it again once Beth comes back.

Merle doesn’t stick around long after his next beer or two. The bar’s crowded and he wants to try his luck with some woman or other, likely whoever’ll have him, Merle’s never been all that picky. He winks at Daryl, tells him not to wait up. Even tells Beth it was nice meetin’ her, which, by his book, is the nicest goddamn thing he could say to a person. He means it, too. Daryl’s never known his brother to say anything he doesn’t mean, and he guesses that’s something he and Beth have in common. Daryl would rather not compare the two of them, considerin’, but if it means they’ll get along at the end of the day, then that’s fine by him. That’s not a pair’a people he’d wanna get between in an argument.

And now — fuck, now he’s alone with Beth again. Alone as you can be in a bar packed full of people, but they’re together with nobody else to play buffer, so alone enough. Which is… It’s fine, Daryl tells himself. They’ve done this before, almost always with no other people around at all. He doesn’t know why this should be any different, ‘cause it’s _not_, really, but it feels like it is. Got him talkin’ circles to himself because once again it’s _Beth_ and he still doesn’t know what to do with her.

Well. No. He knows what he _wants_ to do with her. To her. But it’s nothing he could do in public, _Jesus_, though it’s a lot more appealing than thinking about getting himself off in the bathroom. ‘Cause it would mean getting _her_ off, too, and that’s sort of the whole point of wanting Beth like he does in the first place.

They talk awhile, lapse into silence when neither of them’s got anything to say, same as ever, but now he keeps thinking about her arms around him on the motorcycle, about the way she looks in his worn old jacket. His gaze keeps flicking to her hands and he remembers how soft they were when they held his.

And he just keeps on fucking thinking about _kissing_ her. Dragging her off to the bathroom or his truck or anywhere where nobody else is, so he can just fucking kiss her already and see how she feels about it.

“Hey.” Beth pulls him out of his thoughts with a hand on his arm. “You alright?”

“Uh —” Daryl coughs. “Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“You sure?” Her eyes search his face and he could swear she’s trying not to smile. “You’re lookin’ kinda flushed, Mr. Dixon.”

_Probably ‘cause you keep goddamn calling me that_, he thinks. _And now I keep thinkin’ about bendin’ you over this table. Gettin’ those little shorts down and goin’ headfirst into your pussy, see if you taste as good as you smell._

God damn, what the fuck is his problem?

He clears his throat some more. “Warm in here, I guess. C’mon.” He tugs on her belt loop again, because the curve of her hip drives him nuts and he just wants to be near it. “Could go for a drink.”

He can hardly think straight as it is; last thing he needs now is another beer. He coulda done with something stronger after what Beth said to him earlier — _Christ_ — and after all those thoughts up and flit through his mind, but he’s gotta get his shit under control. All he needs is a water ‘cause being around her too long makes his throat run dry.

Still, the place is packed, so when they reach the bar, he props an elbow against it, stood sideways next to Beth as he presses a hand to the small of her back, feels her shuffle a little closer to him. A few strands of her hair, frizzy from the humidity, tickle his nose and he starts thinking about how good she smells again.

Maybe that’s what makes his hand slip, so that it’s curled against the hem of her shirt instead of outside her jacket. So he can feel the heat of her skin. Maybe that’s what gets his thumb tracing the lower ridges of her spine. Feel her back muscles flex beneath the steady slow stroke of his touch. Maybe that’s what gets him to not think at all, so he just keeps right on doing what he is ‘cause she seems to… Fuck, she seems to _like it_.

He downs his water in just a few pulls from the glass, then turns to look at her again because he thinks he might be able to manage it now. It works about as well as he can expect, since she still looks like that — like she always does, but he’s never gonna get used to it — and it still looks like she’s trying not to smile at him.

“Wanna beer or somethin’?” he asks, for want of anything else to say and he’s gotta say _something_, or else he’ll just keep on staring at her like a damn idiot.

“I’m not old enough, remember?” she teases, with a self-satisfied little smirk that toys around the edges of her mouth.

“Yeah, well.” He shifts on his feet. “Ain’t gonna kill ya or nothin’ to have one. If y’ want.”

“Think somethin’ sweet might do me better.” She leans on the bar to better squint at her options. “How’s peach schnapps? Is it good?”

Daryl snorts. “No.”

She leans back again, away from the counter so that her shoulder settles against his chest. She’s closer to him than she was a second ago, before she moved, so that when she looks at him he could count her eyelashes if he had a mind to.

“What’s your expert recommendation, then?”

It’s his turn to lean now, nearer to her ‘cause it’s loud enough with all the people and music that he can blame it on the noise, that he _had_ to get closer so she could hear him. He probably doesn’t need to sweep his fingertips along her lower back, and his lips don’t have to brush her ear for her to hear him, but…

Well. He’s already done both, so too damn bad.

“Ain’t gonna find it behind that bar, girl.”

Her cheeks are pink, eyes a shade darker than usual. So he must’ve done something, and maybe it was even something right.

Beth tries to play it off, whatever it is. She swallows, shakes her head a little, all of these bits and pieces of things Daryl thinks might be some kinda signal. He’s always had sharp eyes, always been good at reading people when he’s got a mind to do it. He just hadn’t thought much about trying to read Beth like that, ‘cause most every time he looks at her he’s got a tendency to panic.

He doesn’t know if that’s changed entirely, or why it has at all. Maybe it’s just been too long since he started wanting her. Things have a way of coming to a head; maybe it’s about time this thing does.

Lotta maybes, but they’re sure as hell better than the _never-gonna-happen_’s.

“It’s a _bar_, Daryl,” Beth says, a little like she’s teasing him again but she doesn’t want him to know it, “what d’you mean it’s not gonna be back there?”

“Can’t get moonshine just anywhere.”

“Oh, ugh.” She scrunches up her nose. “My daddy says bad moonshine can make you go blind.”

“So don’ drink bad moonshine,” Daryl says like it’s obvious, and as far as he’s concerned it is. “Shit, I thought you were smart.”

“Did you? Hmmm…” She pretends to think about that. Daryl knows it’s pretending, because it’s pretty clear she knows just what she wants to say to him. Her eyes dart to his, and he could count the flecks of green in all that blue as well as he could count her eyelashes. “‘Cause I remember you sayin’ I was pretty, but that’s about it.”

Jesus, she’s never gonna let him live that down, is she?

That grin of hers might be worse than Merle’s. Well, _better_, but… worse. Somehow. Probably because he wants to know what it tastes like, what it’d feel like, for the corners of her lips to quirk up like that under the press of his own mouth.

“Pain in the ass. ‘s what y’ are,” he mutters, and even over the noise around him she can hear him. He knows she must be able to, ‘cause his breath stirs all those stray strands of hair that’ve escaped her ponytail.

Beth hums. She’s a little over eye-level with his mouth in those shoes of hers, but her gaze drops lower, to where his Adam’s apple bobs nervously, ‘cause she gets him feelin’ restless and reckless and he doesn’t know what to do with any of that.

“I’m gonna make a list of all the nice things you say to me,” she says, with a note of finality like she’s come to some real important conclusion, “versus all the bad things, and then I’m gonna use that to figure out whether you’re jus’ puttin’ up with me or if you actually like me.”

At that, his gaze darts off to stare at his free hand on the bartop. He doesn’t bring his thumb to his mouth this time, just taps it against the sticky, laminated wood. He’s still muttering when he tells her, “Like y’ fine,” and ain’t that an understatement if he’s ever heard one?

“You’re a real softie, Daryl, y’know that?”

He huffs, meets her eye again. “You want a drink or not?”

Beth’s got the nerve to giggle at him, but it makes that tight feeling in his chest loosen up so he can’t be all that annoyed about it. “Nah. It’s gettin’ kinda late, actually, I should head back.”

That tight feeling seizes up again. “Any’a your friends still here?”

She shakes her head. “Nah, I’ll get an Uber.”

“No y’ won’t.” When she looks at him, confused, he shrugs. “I’ll take you home.”

“Well, what’d you even ask for, then?” She snorts, this little gust of breath that hits his throat and makes him shiver. His grip twists in the hem of her tank top. “Gimme just a minute, I’m gonna run to the restroom quick before we go. Meetcha outside.”

He has to settle his tab — mostly Merle’s, but that was the deal when he borrowed the bike and he’s gotta make good on that — anyway, so he nods. He disentangles his fingers from her shirt, so that his bare skin brushes hers for just a second that he wants to stretch out longer, and he thinks Beth might, too, because it takes another second longer before she gives him a smile and heads off.

Daryl watches her go, releasing a long, low breath as the bob of her ponytail disappears into the crowd. Christ, but he’s in trouble. Known it for awhile, but sometimes it comes back to him and floors him all over again.

He shakes his head to clear it, and turns back to the bar so he can get the fuck outta here soon as possible.

It’s something like ten minutes before he gets the bartender’s attention, and another five before he gets his charge slip. Looks like Merle ran through half the damn bar but, fine, this is pretty much what Daryl had worked all that overtime for, anyway.

He doesn’t think too much to worry about Beth in that time. It’s a Friday night, the place is crowded, and Beth’s chatty — she’s probably in the bathroom making a whole bunch of new friends or something. So he doesn’t worry, but he only gives it another five minutes before he heads to the back of the bar himself. She said she’d meet him outside, but he’d rather not let her out of his sight any longer than he already has. She needs lookin’ after, that’s what he thought when he saw her there in the first place, and if he mulls it over anymore then he really _is_ gonna start to worry about where she’s gone off to.

As it turns out, he’s not out of his mind to worry, either, because when he does find her it’s near up against a wall with Gorman trying to do whatever it is he was trying to do earlier. She’s standing a little funny, too, putting her weight on one ankle, and she’s saying, “Really, I gotta go, I got someone waiting on me —”

“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be hangin’ out with old rednecks like the Dixons,” Gorman says, all sickly sweet, and that’s more than enough for Daryl to about rip an arm out of his socket and shove it up the guy’s ass.

“Old redneck who’s gonna knock your damn teeth out,” Daryl bites when he’s within reach. He does take Gorman by the shoulder then, not hard enough to pop anything but hard enough so the guy knows he _could_, and shoves him away from Beth. Shoves him another step back, too, just because he wants to. “Jus’ talkin’ to her again, huh?”

Gorman’s not so sickly sweet anymore. He sneers, like it’s all some big joke and he’s the only one who’s got the punchline. “Think it’s a good idea to threaten a cop, d’you?”

“Think it’s a good idea to do more’n that, yeah.”

“Like what?”

“Like kick your ass —”

“Daryl.” Beth stops him, catches him by the arm so he’ll look at her instead. “Can we go, please?”

He sweeps his eyes down her body, to make sure she’s alright but she’s _not_, is she? “The fuck happened to y’r ankle?”

“She got a little overexcited,” Gorman supplies, like anybody fucking asked him. “Guess she doesn’t know how to handle a real man’s interest, do you, sweetheart?”

Beth’s jaw sets. “Call me sweetheart _one_ _more_ _time_, an’ I’ll —”

“Let’s go.” Now it’s Daryl cutting her off, because he really might kill this fucking guy if he says one more word. Rick Grimes might be like a brother to him, but still there’s never been any love lost between the Dixons and any PD, and it’s not hard to figure who’d get away with what if Daryl knocked Gorman’s skull into the wall.

“C’mon,” he urges some more, gets Beth’s arm around his shoulder and his around her waist. She’s still warm under his hand, but it’s not doing to him what it did earlier, ‘cause now she’s hurt and, damn it, he shouldn’t’ve left her alone as long as he did.

That thought keeps him company as he shoves past Gorman and whatever stupid shit he was gonna say next, as he leads Beth through the bar and out to the parking lot. The noise, the people, none of it registers until suddenly it’s quiet and cooler and all he can hear is Beth’s labored breathing as she hobbles across the gravel.

“_Ouch_ — Daryl, hold on just a minute, my ankle jus’ —”

“‘Cause you’re wearin’ those damn stupid shoes,” he says, harsher than he’d meant to. He’s not even angry with her, couldn’t be; he’s just pissed at himself.

In a lame effort to make up for it, he stops so she can catch her breath, but not before _he_ catches the flash of annoyance in her eyes.

“Yeah,” Beth snaps right back, “guess they’re no good when you can’t get away fast enough from some guy who can’t take no thank you for’n answer.”

Daryl blinks. His anger settles some, to be replaced by surprise or incredulity or maybe even a little bit of amusement, or something like that. “You said _no thank you_?”

“Yeah, turns out it doesn’t work as well as the Daryl Dixon ‘fuck off’ approach, huh?”

His nerves scramble in his chest, up into his throat, when he hears her grit her teeth and talk like that. He can’t help the smile that ghosts across his mouth. It’s not funny, none of this is, but she’s alright now, isn’t she? More or less. She’s with him, at least, he can see her now and he’s not gonna let anybody else touch her.

“Dirty mouth’s gonna get you in trouble one’a these days.”

“Oh, I can’t _wait_,” Beth grumbles, but there’s a little bit of a smile there now, too. She sighs, and her eyes soften in the cheap yellow glow of the streetlight behind her. “You gonna scold me some more or what?”

“Ain’t no reason.” Daryl tucks some loose hair behind her ear. He meant it as a soothing gesture or some shit, but a thrill shoots through him when she sighs again, when she leans into his touch and her breath breaks against the pulse point in his wrist.

He swallows those nerves, or tries, and spares another glance towards her feet. “How’s it feel? Think it’s broken or anythin’?”

“No. Just hurts.”

_Just hurts. _Daryl’d be willing to bet she’s underselling it, but he’s got a feeling it’s not broken, either. Maybe a sprain at worst, but even if it’s that, it’s something he can take care of for her, easy. It’s been years since he’s needed to, but all the same he’s had plenty of practice dressing his own wounds, busted bones and all.

The truck’s only another few paces, but it’s high enough off the ground that Beth’s not gonna be able to make it to the passenger seat on her own.

“Fuckin’ stay still,” Daryl grouses, once he’s opened the door for her and she actually tries to hop up without any help. “Damn it, gonna fall and bust your ass, too, y’ keep tryin’ to do that.”

“Don’t you worry about my ass, Daryl Dixon —”

“What’d I say about that dirty mouth’a yours, girl?”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, ain’t you?”

This is getting them nowhere, except Beth all pink-cheeked and Daryl half-hard as they stand there bickering, closer than they need to be, with her boxed against the open door and him looking right at her mouth. But fuck if he can help it, getting near enough to her so he can taste the chewing gum on her breath with every irritated word she shoots at him.

So, without preamble because he really needs to get a look at her ankle, make sure it’s not so bad, Daryl gets his arm back around her waist and the other under her knees, and lifts her up like she doesn’t weigh a thing. She hardly does, but before he can remark on how she’s heavier than he would’ve thought, lookin’ at her, she yelps in surprise.

“Damn, keep it down.” He scoots her onto the seat, mindful of her injury even when that primal part of him just wants to toss her down and climb on top of her (like that’s a thought he really needs to be having right now, _fuck_). “People gonna be thinkin’ I’m kidnappin’ you or somethin’.”

“Surprised me, that’s all.” Beth’s the one clearing her throat this time, busying herself straightening her jacket, but he can still see how pink her face is. Been pink half the damn night and it’s making him wonder if she’s like that all over. “Next time you wanna go grabbin’ on me, jus’ tell me first.”

_Next time…_ Well, if that don’t make Daryl’s head spin, ain’t nothin’ gonna shock him no more.

He doesn’t say anything, just clicks her door shut and rounds the truck to his own. Even after they’re settled, doors locked and seatbelts on, he hesitates. What the hell is he supposed to do with her now? He could take her back to the farm, like he would’ve if she hadn’t twisted anything, but the Greenes’ place is smack in the middle of nowhere, close enough to an hour away that it’s got Daryl second-guessing himself.

Before he can second-guess his other option, before he can have no damn idea what to do at all, he casts a sidelong look her way. “You, uh, alright goin’ back to my place? ‘S about ten minutes out. I wanna get some ice on that ankle.”

She nods, so readily it’s like she’d already thought about it herself. “Don’t wanna have to explain this to Daddy and Maggie, anyway. I’ll text her, tell her I’m staying at Amy’s.”

Daryl nods, too. Good. That’s good. He insists it to himself, that this is the best solution they’ve got, otherwise he’s gonna start… He doesn’t even know, fuckin’ hyperventilating or some shit at the thought of bringing Beth back to his place. It’s not a _bad_ place, even when Merle’s hanging around it’s plenty clean and all, but it’s still his and he’s gonna take her home and that’s…

Well, it’s something worth hyperventilating about, if he had the luxury of doing so right now.

But he doesn’t. So he just hands Beth the aux cord he put in there for her, anyway, sticks the keys in the ignition, and hopes that he can keep his goddamn head on right the rest of the night.


	8. come knockin’ late at night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: is this even good I DON’T KNOW and i might have gone too Sappy in... several places... but it had to be done and i was sick of looking at it so here it is
> 
> real talk, though — this chapter contains references to past child abuse, depression, and suicidal ideology. i speak largely from experience so i was as sensitive and non-explicit as possible, but even that can be triggering so please take care. <3

They’re already up the flight of stairs and more than halfway down the hall that leads to his apartment — about three paces from the door, actually — when Daryl’s had enough of Beth’s limping and grumbles something about it.

“Goin’ as fast as I can,” she gripes, and glares at him when he prods her in the back to move her along.

“Forget that.”

Without any more of a warning, Daryl’s scooped her up into his arms again, easy as pie (easier, even, ‘cause frankly Daryl’s got no damn idea how to make a pie). It’s not strictly necessary, or necessary at all, because Beth’s got this far on her own, but it’s… fine, it’s fine. He’s holding her up bridal-style and it’s too goddamn late to change his mind now, ain’t it?

“Daryl Dixon,” Beth says, all admonishing-like, “what’d I _just tell you_ ‘bout grabbin’ me?”

“Maybe this’ll make ya think twice next time you wanna put on these stupid-ass shoes.”

“Ain’t my shoes’ fault.”

She’s right, of course. He actually likes her shoes. More than he should, because since when’s he cared about anybody’s shoes? Those bracelets, not so much right now, ‘cause they’re digging into his neck where Beth’s got her arms hooked tight around him. But he wouldn’t mind it, really, if they left a mark behind.

They’re right outside his door when his gaze drops to her mouth. Wouldn’t mind if that left any sort of mark behind on him, either. Wouldn’t take much to coax her lips to his neck, or to his mouth, or wherever else she might want. Just a gentle nudge, a shift to bring her closer. His thumb swipes up her hip, grip tightens under her knees, and then Beth’s scooting closer all on her own, like she’s not consciously considering it, maybe, but her eyes are flickering over his face, too, and he really is thinkin’ about it when —

“Why, hello there, Daryl.”

An old woman is hobbling down the hall, sorta like Beth was, only it’s her age and not an ankle injury that’s stopping her. She’s got a little yappy dog at the end of a bright pink leash.

Daryl hates that fucking dog, swear to god, it wakes him up at some shitty hour of the morning every time he’s got a day off, like the damn thing _knows_, and he doesn’t like the way it looks at him, either.

“Uh” — he does shift Beth in his arms then, which only brings her close enough that some of her stray hairs catch on his lips — “hey, Missus Brennamen.”

“I didn’t know you got married. How nice.” The woman looks between him and Beth before her face splits into an indulgent smile, and she keeps right on babbling, even when the damn dog snuffles at her feet like it disagrees. “It’s always good luck to carry her over the threshold. My husband did that often as he could, you know. So nice to see young people carry on those traditions.”

Daryl doesn’t know what the fuck to say to that, and he knows the woman’s never all that interested in his side of the conversation, anyway. All the better now. So he doesn't say a word, just blinks after his neighbor and her nasty rat of a dog — it eyeballs him on its way past — as they shuffle down the hall and around the corner.

“Um.” Beth’s blinking, too, brow furrowed like she’s trying to puzzle out what just happened. She tilts her face towards his. “Does she think… we got married?”

“Must.” He snorts. “Crazy old bat.”

_“Daryl!”_

“Pipe down, Missus Dixon,” he huffs, and readjusts his hold on her so he can dig into his pocket. “Hold up a sec, lemme get my keys…”

He probably shouldn’t’ve called her that. Maybe _definitely_ shouldn’t’ve called her that. He thinks he must be trying to flirt with her. God damn it. Daryl doesn’t know how to fucking do that and here he is tryin’ anyway, but he must not have done the worst job of it ‘cause she’s giggling when he unlocks the door and kicks it the rest of the way open.

This could be good, he thinks. The night might not turn out to be such a shitshow, after all.

If anything was gonna kill the mood stirring in his gut, though, it’s the sound of his brother and some stranger going at it in the spare bedroom.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

Daryl doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud at first, can barely hear his own muttered curse over the sounds of — _ugh_. Fuck. He doesn’t want to think about it, even as it’s pounding in his ears; the only thing he wants to think about is how exactly he’s gonna kill Merle. It doesn’t even have to be inventive, just quick.

“Oh, gosh.” Beth’s face flames and her giggles turn nervous, a little manic, even.

Daryl snorts in acknowledgement. He kicks the door back in place so they don’t piss off any of the neighbors, but he’s still carrying Beth and he figures it’s best he not put her down just yet. If he doesn’t have his hands full, he might see fit to knock Merle’s door down and douse him and his _friend_ in a bucket of ice water, and god knows what sorta eyeful he’d get if he let his annoyance get the best of him.

“You don’t gotta listen to that all night. I’ll take the couch. Y’ can crash in my room,” Daryl says as he heads that way. Lucky thing the bedrooms are situated at opposite ends of the apartment, though not so lucky for him that the living room is smack outside Merle’s.

“You can’t sleep out there, either!” Beth protests. “We can share, jeez, Daryl, you gotta twin bed or somethin’?”

He freezes, hands tensing around her. _We can_ _share._ _Jeez_ in-fucking-deed, does she know what she’s saying? “No, but —”

“But nothin.’” She says it with finality, authority, and it’s not like he’s ever been able to not give her what she wants, so he guesses that really is that, isn’t it? “C’mon, get movin’ so you can look at my ankle, otherwise you’re gonna have to carry me around forever.”

He could do that. But it might be best not to say that out loud, to anyone, ever, so he just snorts again and picks up the pace.

When he sets Beth down on the edge of his bed, he realizes it’s unmade — Christ, he’s a slob — and the couple empty cans of RC on his nightstand, the TV he’d left on, paused in the middle of some action movie, like that’s not gonna rack up his utilities bill so he guesses he knows what he’ll be spending the rest of his overtime pay on, the flannels slung over his headboard because frankly he’s not sure whether they need to be washed or not, and —

Well, like he said. He’s a slob.

“Uh.” He clears his throat, swipes up the soda cans while Beth shucks off her jacket and tosses it with his flannels, like she don’t mind the mess. “Why doncha get them boots off, and, uh —”

He yanks a drawer open and digs out a shirt. He hesitates a moment, but this can’t be the most obvious thing he’s done, can it? Rick and even Merle had his number on this Beth thing long before Daryl started dressing her in his clothes.

“Here.” He tosses it to her before he can think about it anymore. Gettin’ real tired of all this thinking, anyway.

Beth looks a little surprised, but then she smiles. “Thanks.”

“Give you a pair’a pants, too, but…” He scratches the side of his nose with the hand holding the empty cans. “Y’r about half my damn size. Probably fall right off ya.”

Oh, fuck him sideways. He does _not_ need to be thinking about Beth’s pants falling off. She’s about to be half-dressed around him but there’s still a line, alright? He’s seen her in her swimsuit, too, so this can’t be that hard for him. He just doesn’t need to be imagining it like that, s’all.

“Yeah, yeah.” She sticks her tongue out at him. “Me an’ my scrawny ass, I get it. Gonna start thinkin’ you like it if you keep talkin’ about it so much.”

“Watch your damn mouth,” Daryl grumbles as he leaves the room, her answering giggle following behind.

Christ, she’s fuckin’ giggly. He doesn’t even know how else to describe it, and, just like her scrawny ass, like hell is he even gonna think about how much he likes it.

He can do this. That’s what he tells himself as he tosses the RC cans and grabs an ice pack — he doesn’t need to’ve looked at her ankle yet to know she’s gonna need ice, at least — from the freezer, wraps it up in one of the old bandanas he uses for kitchen rags.

All the while, he pointedly doesn’t think about the noise his brother’s making and what it might be like for him to make those kinda noises with Beth, because there really must be something wrong with him if he wishes he could be more like Merle right now. Doesn’t matter the context. That’s a fuckin’ red flag if ever he saw one.

But then he goes back to his bedroom and all he can see is a lot of Beth’s legs, and everything else scatters right the fuck outta his head.

The shirt hits almost to her knees, definitely longer than those little denim shorts she’d been wearing, but even still this gets under his skin even deeper. Because that’s _his_ shirt and _his_ bed and that’s Beth all wrapped up in the middle of it, and —

Maybe he can’t do this, after all. It’s quite possible he’s having a heart attack.

The sleeves are long gone, like they are on almost everything he owns because he doesn’t like the stretch of material tight on his arms. Now that Beth’s wearing it… He should’ve given her something else. He can see a bit of her ribcage like this, can see the bright white lace of her bra. At least she’s wearing a bra, though, he tries to think positive ‘cause sometimes she’s not wearing one, and maybe that’s something he shouldn’t notice but obviously he’s _gonna_.

He wonders if she’s wearing any underwear, too. He doesn’t think she’d get in his bed like that, but… Well, he’d let her, so.

_So._

She’s sitting up against the headboard, legs stretched out with her injured foot propped up on a pillow. She’s touching her ankle with careful fingers, but her voice is still breezy when she says, “It doesn’t look so bad.”

Daryl’s looking at the hem of his shirt on her. “Nah, it really doesn’t.”

Beth leans back when he joins her, sideways next to her so he can get a good look at the bruise. He sets the ice pack aside for the time being, places one hand on her calf to keep her steady but she shivers, anyway.

He glances up at her through his hair, catches the bob of her throat and the shaky edges of her otherwise reassuring smile. “Your hands are cold.”

“Gonna be a lot colder when I get this ice on y’,” he warns her, like she doesn’t know what ice is or something but, fuck off, he’s panicking. Not a lot, not externally, but it’s this flutter coming up from deep in his gut and he really, really fucking hates it.

The hand on her calf rubs small circles there, like he can’t stop himself from touching once he’s got his hands on her. He hears her sigh, soft and low, but the last thing he’s able to do when she makes sounds like that is look her straight in the face, so he keeps his eyes fixed to her ankle.

It really isn’t that bad. A little red, a little swollen, but nothing’s broken. She’ll be able to walk on it by tomorrow, so long as she rests it up tonight and it’s not like Daryl was planning to let her out of his bed, anyway.

Wait. No. Well, _yes_, but the thought sounded bad as soon as it flitted across his brain.

He could do something about all these things that keep on flitting, all these things he’s been feeling since who-knows-when. They’re alone and he can’t goddamn stop thinking about kissing her, she’s leaning into his touch as he inspects her ankle, as he massages her calf. Her skin’s so damn warm and soft and — fuck, he glances up again and this time he catches a peek under her borrowed shirt when she shifts her legs again, and she _is_ wearing underwear, this scrap of pale blue that gets his mouth to watering, and he could _do something_ about all this, Christ on a fucking cracker, he _could_, and —

But he can’t. Not really. ‘Cause she’s hurt and stuck at his place and she already had to deal with some asshole twice tonight. He’d be no better, if he tried something now and it turns out he’s been reading her all wrong, and she don’t want anything to do with him like that. Truth is, he doesn’t know for sure — maybe he’s just _hoping_ — and puttin’ any kinda moves on her now, when she’s got nowhere else to go, no way of leaving, is such a dick thing to do that even thinking about it like he is makes him want to kick his own ass.

He ain’t gonna do that to her. Doesn’t even know _what_ he’d do, but it can wait. Probably not much longer if he doesn’t wanna lose his dumb fuckin’ mind for good. But for right now, tonight, it can wait.

“What’s the diagnosis, doctor?” she asks, all cheerful, because she’s got no idea what’s going on in his head.

Her toes — painted a dark blue, which doesn’t match the neon green on her fingers — wiggle when he exhales a short, amused breath through his nose. “You’ll live.”

He lays the ice pack over her ankle, keeps his other hand on her leg. He’s still tracing the curve of her muscle with his thumb, still wondering what it’d be like if she wrapped it around his hips or, _fuck_, his shoulders.

Gotta _stop_ fuckin’ goin’ there right now. He coughs, and makes himself talk to her instead of just looking at her up and down like she’s a meal and he’s starvin’ and doesn’t know where to start. Gotta remember why he can’t do that tonight.

So, he asks her, “Wanna talk about it?”

“What?”

“Y’know.” _Gorman._

“Oh.” Beth shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like she’s fine and dandy and maybe she is. “Nothing to talk about. I’m jus’... glad you were there, otherwise I guess there mighta been.”

Daryl’s free hand comes up to his mouth, so he can gnaw at his fingernails, mutter around them, “I shoulda hit ‘im.”

“Yeah, and got yourself hauled off to jail.” Beth rolls her eyes. “Then who’d feed me, huh?”

“I’m feedin’ ya now?”

She presses her lips together to bite back that smile, but another giggle escapes and god damn it if he’s not putty in her hands. “Please?”

“Jesus.” Daryl heaves a sigh, but he yanks his phone out of his pocket and pulls up the nearest delivery place. “Yeah. Get you a damn pizza.”

She doesn’t wanna talk about it, that’s fine. Maybe she really is just as okay as she says she is — he knows she is, because Beth would tell the truth, even if she thought nobody wanted to hear it. If she’d rather move on with her night, that’s good enough for him.

So he orders her pizza and then some, because of course this girl wants hers loaded with veggies and Daryl tells her in no uncertain terms that he’s not gonna eat that shit, so he tacks on another order. He starts up the movie again, too, bumps up the volume just in case Merle and his friend decide to get any louder. They can still hear them, every once in awhile, and Beth keeps trying not to laugh.

“Sorry,” she says the third time around, when an especially loud squeal drowns out the explosion on TV and Daryl side-eyes her. “But — oh, come on, I gotta laugh, what else’m I supposed to do?”

“Try not to think about it.”

She covers her face with her hands and shakes with hardly-repressed mirth. “They’re _so_ _loud_.”

“Gonna fuckin’ kill ‘im tomorrow.”

“Least he’s makin’ his last night a good one, huh?”

Daryl doesn’t say anything to that, just wallops her in the face with a pillow.

That’s when he realizes it, that his sheets are gonna smell like her tomorrow. Gonna smell like flowers, like a humid summer afternoon and the tang of her sweat.

He could throw ‘em in the wash, he guesses. He’s not gonna, but he could, and somehow that makes him feel more at ease.

He’s spared unpacking that thought any further by a knock at the door. _Thank fuck_, Daryl thinks as he pushes himself off the mattress, and Beth yanks her coat from the headboard and starts digging through the pockets.

“Hang on,” she says, “I got money.”

“Good f’r you.”

“Daryl, wait, lemme give you some —”

“No.” He plucks the jacket from her hold and tosses it away, out of her reach. “Keep your ass righ’ there, I’ll be back in a second.”

She crosses her arms, slouches back like she’s pouting. “You always gotta be in charge’a everyone?”

“Nah. Jus’ you.”

Beth’s mouth twitches, sorta like Daryl’s fingers do, only she’s smirking and he’s trying not to touch her, tryin’ to take back what he just said.

This is why he doesn’t fucking _talk_.

He mumbles something that sounds like “shut up,” but he’s pretty sure his brain just blipped out so he doesn’t actually know, and heads out to answer the next knock on the door, and —

Shit. God damn it Jesus Christ, how much fucking weirder is this night gonna get?

“Hey, man.” Glenn — Maggie Greene’s goddamn boyfriend, who can never keep his mouth shut so at least Beth’s down the hall, otherwise the next person on his doorstep would _be_ Maggie, with a shotgun instead of pizzas — grins. “Veggie supreme, huh? Weird. You know that’s Beth’s favorite?”

“Uh.” Daryl busies himself peeling bills apart so he doesn’t have to look at Glenn. “No.”

“Not your usual.”

“Yeah” — he’s actually grateful when Merle and his latest fuck buddy kick up a racket just then, because — “Merle’s got a friend over. S’for her.”

“Oh, uh” — Glenn pulls a face — “ugh. Sorry, man.”

Daryl shrugs it off, and it’s not like Glenn wants to stick around after that, so it coulda been worse. Still, Daryl takes a moment to lean his forehead against the closed door, take a few breaths, try to get his shit together. It doesn’t work but, fuck it, he tried. It doesn’t count for shit, but… Whatever.

He snags a couple more sodas from the fridge, then rifles through the junk drawer for the off-brand Tylenol or some shit he knows is in there. He pops one himself to stave off the tension headache, and brings the bottle along back to his room.

He dumps the pizzas on the bed next to Beth and offers the painkillers. “Here.”

“‘M fine.” She waves him off. “I don’t need those.”

“Damn well _do_.” His jaw tics when she rolls her eyes at him. How many times she gonna do that tonight? “Fuck, girl, just take ‘em, wouldja? ‘S gonna hurt later if y’ don’t.”

He’s just as stubborn as she is — fuck it, he’s _more_ — and Beth knows it, so she relents, washes the things down with a long draw of Coke that makes her throat bob and for some reason Daryl can’t take his eyes off it.

_For some reason._ Yeah, like he doesn’t damn well know what his problem is by now. He ain’t stupid. Almost wishes he were, ‘cause then maybe he wouldn’t be so worried about this all the time. It’s fuckin’ exhausting.

He very determinedly doesn’t look at Beth while she eats. Doesn’t need to be distracted by the movement of her throat, or the way she licks at the tips of her fingers, the side of her thumb, after every slice or whenever sauce dribbles down her skin. Bad enough he sees it out of his periphery, ‘cause no matter how many explosions happen on the TV, he couldn’t help but sneak a glance next to him every minute or two.

Much as he hates to admit it, Merle might’ve had a point when he called Daryl pussy-whipped. Not like Daryl _minds_, really; it just pisses him off whenever his brother turns out to be right.

When they’re finished, he wipes his hands on his jeans and nods at her propped-up foot. “Lemme see that ankle again.”

Beth wiggles her toes when he leans over, tosses the softened ice pack to the floor. He runs a thumb over her chilled skin and, this time, her toes curl. A thought flickers then, about what else he could do to get her to do that again, but he dismisses it just as quickly, ‘cause he already told himself he couldn’t think about that shit right now.

He swallows around the lump in his throat, the one that’s been there all damn night. “How’s it feel?”

“Better.”

“Think y’ could walk on it?”

“I dunno.” He can hear the smile in her voice, so he’s gotta look up to see it. “Kinda like you carrying me around.”

He snorts, nudges her calf. “Lazy ass.”

“Told you to quit talkin’ about my ass.”

“An’ I told _you_ to watch y’r mouth, didn’ I?”

Beth’s grin quirks up a little more. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”

Fuck him, but he’s not gonna go and get himself backed into a corner by a question like that. He wonders if she wants him to, if she wants to make him say all those things that’ve been runnin’ through his mind for longer than he could even try to remember. Things he can’t even put words to, but he’d bet that she’d want him to give it a shot. And he would — for her, he would.

Just not _tonight_. Just in case he’s wrong.

So he taps her on the knee before he pulls his hand away — there’s a slight chill to his fingertips now, from her iced-down skin — and he tells her, “Gonna make y’ sleep on the couch, ‘s what I’m gonna do.”

Beth laughs at that, ‘cause of course she does. ‘Cause she knows he wouldn’t do that, especially not with the sounds still coming from the next bedroom like nobody else lives here — or in the entire building, Daryl thinks, but maybe Missus Brennamen will just tell anybody who complains that he’s got himself a wife now so who could blame them?

He shouldn’t be thinking shit like that. Shouldn’t be doing most of the things he is, though, and at least he can keep this one to himself.

In some kinda effort to _fucking stop it_, he tries to focus up on the rest of the movie. No idea what’s going on or if it even matters, it’s just a lot of explosions and shit, which should distract him well enough, but he’s never tried to do anything with Beth so close to him and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that _she’s_ the distraction, bar none.

Her knee bumps his every so often, when she’s getting more comfortable — comfortable in his bed, in his shirt, makin’ all these little purring sounds of contentment, and if her arm brushes his _one_ _more time_ he’s gonna fuckin’ lose it, hand to god.

So it’s a relief (maybe? Sort of? A change of pace, if nothing else) when the credits roll and she yawns. It’s goin’ on late, something like three in the morning. Daryl kicks off his shoes and socks, but that’s about as dressed down as he’s gonna get with Beth there. He can sleep in his jeans, and no way is he taking off his shirt.

He nods at her bracelets, though, while he sets the alarm clock on his phone so he can get her home at a decent hour. “You wanna take those things off?”

“Oh — yeah.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes so much this time. “Sometimes I forget, I wear ‘em so much.”

“What for?”

“Just trying to move past it.” Beth shrugs as she rolls a few of the bracelets off and unclips a couple more. “I dunno, I don’t like it when people ask about it. I mean, what do they think I’ve got a scar like this for? Sorta spoils a first impression. It shouldn’t, but… I dunno,” she says again. “Everybody’s suddenly a therapist when they find out you hurt yourself, even when they don’t know anythin’ about you.”

If he thought his brain went dead before, it’s nothing to what Daryl’s feeling now. The hell’s she talking about? _Get past what? Ask about what? A scar like what?_ The only scars he knows are the ones on his back, angry and red and purple, crisscrossed and embedded in his skin, painless now, just a part of him he doesn’t want anybody else to see, but what’s _Beth Greene_ got to hide?

When that thin, bright white line comes into view, when she shakes off those bracelets and sets them on his bedside table, he doesn’t just swallow around the lump in his throat, he swallows it whole.

“What?” The word comes out like the scratch of sandpaper.

Beth looks at him, brow furrowed in confusion, and then her eyes widen a little, like she doesn’t get it but then she put it together quick as a whip. “You didn’t know?”

Maybe he should have guessed, the way Hershel never talked about what Beth was up to after the funeral, how she wasn’t around ‘til she started babysitting the kids, how she’s lonely most’a the time.

If Daryl had any experience with shit like this, maybe he would’ve known. But he’d never felt like that, somehow. Even at his worst he’d found something to keep him going, even if it was just his own hard-headed stubbornness to prove everybody wrong.

Beth hadn’t found that, though. _Beth. _If somebody like her could lose faith, then what hope do the rest of their sorry asses got?

But — _but_. She’s still here, ain’t she? She’s sitting right in front of him. That means more than the rest of it.

_You didn’t know?_

No. Jesus Christ, he hadn’t known shit about it. He’s not gonna pretend otherwise, so he shakes his head, then ducks it. “You alrigh’?”

“I’ve been okay, yeah.” Beth’s voice is even, soothing, like he’s the one who needs takin’ care of.

When he doesn’t say anything, because he’s got nothing, because he’s _no good at this_, he feels her soft warm hand on his shoulder and she keeps talking.

“Don’t go gettin’ weird on me, now.” Still soothing, but half a laugh now like she’s trying to feel okay about it all. “Had enough’a that from Maggie and my friends when it happened. Lots of them ain’t even around anymore. Not like they used to be, anyway.”

Daryl turns his head, angles it to look at her. She’s still holding onto him. And that smile’s there and it’s not, all at the same time.

When their eyes catch, she tells him, like she means it, “I’d like for you to stick around.”

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere.” He gives her what he can of a smile, and he doesn’t smile so it ain’t much, but he can make it _enough_. “Want that shirt back.”

What else can he say? He’s got scars, too. It ain’t the same, but he gets it, because he keeps his covered up, too, even around the people who know they’re there. He doesn’t want anyone lookin’ at him the way they do Beth — like their pity makes a difference, or like he’s damaged goods, or whatever it is that folks get to thinkin’, he doesn’t know, but it’s never anything good when it comes to things like this.

Beth’s smile goes all the way then, like he said something she wanted to hear. He doesn’t know what the fuck that coulda been, but he’s not gonna question it, either, so long as he didn’t mess it up.

“I’ll think about it,” she says back, like it’s up for debate. But then she flops back onto the mattress and grins up at him and, alright, so it is. She’s gonna keep lookin’ at him like that, she can have whatever she wants.

She winds up askin’ for more, too, and even then he’s not about to kick up a fuss.

The lights are out, the TV off, empty pizza boxes tucked next to the dresser, he’ll deal with those tomorrow, and the place is blissfully quiet. Daryl doesn’t know when that happened, he’s just glad that Merle’s apparently conked out. He’ll take it, no questions asked.

The mattress dips, the blankets shift, when Beth turns on her side to face him. He can’t see much of her, just the flash of her open eyes and the gleam of her teeth when she talks.

“D’you think you could…” Her breath tickles his chin when she sighs, an impatient little thing that makes it sound like she’s annoyed with herself. “Listen, I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable or nothin’, and I don’t want you to go makin’ any jokes, either, but — could you put your hand here?” The silhouette of her own hand presses down on the slope of her midsection. “Just on my waist?”

She’s trying to kill him. Has to be. Daryl swallows again, but it’s all dry no matter what he does now. “What, uh, what for?”

“I need somethin’ holding me, otherwise I can’t sleep. I got this — don’t laugh, now,” she warns again, like she actually thinks he would, “but I got this big platypus at home, he’s filled with beans so he’s kinda heavy an’ he weighs me down, like an anti-anxiety thing.”

“A fuckin’ _what_?”

“A platypus.” A beat, and he can hear her choke back another giggle. Girl must be gettin’ slap-happy. “He’s, uh, he’s yellow.”

“A yellow platypus? Ain’t that just a duck?”

_“No,”_ she retorts, all emphatically, “an’ he wouldn’t appreciate you sayin’ that.”

Okay, so maybe he _is_ laughing at her a little now. “He got feelin’s, huh?”

“He’s got a name,” she scoffs, “‘course he’s got feelings.”

“Yeah? What’s his name?”

“Burt Reynolds.”

_“Burt Reynolds?”_

“I said _don’t laugh_.” She pokes him hard in the shoulder, she can feel it shake as he huffs out a laugh whether she likes it or not. “I love Burt Reynolds. Had a big crush on him an’ everythin’, growing up.”

“Jesus.” Daryl bites down on his lip, then figures fuck it and he smooths his palm over her waist, ‘cause it’s what she wants and tonight’s been enough of a shitshow that he’s not gonna deny himself, either. “Hope your fuckin’ yellow platypus ain’t the jealous type.”

“He’ll understand.”

She sighs again, another one of those contented sounds like she did earlier, and he can feel her edge closer even when she doesn’t touch him. She keeps her hands to herself, but he can feel her breathe — could feel it even if he wasn’t holding tight to her waist, even if he wasn’t committing the shape of it to memory with his thumb, caressing it in time with every inhale, exhale.

Daryl’s free hand twitches before it drags across the sheets to find hers. It’s dark and it feels okay, feels like he can without being embarrassed or like he’s about to fuck this up, so he does and he’ll stop if she tells him to.

He holds her wrist, curls his fingers around it and presses his thumb gently against the end of her scar. He traces it lightly, back and forth, like maybe he could make it go away just by touching her enough.

It’s not that he wants to change things or treat her any different. He just… he don’t even know. He just knows what it’s like, sort of, to an extent, and he doesn’t wanna think about his own shit but he wants Beth to feel okay about her own.

Or — fuck. Something like that.

He thinks she’d do the same, if she saw the scars on his back. Knows she would, even if she don’t feel about him what he does for her, because that’s just the sorta person Beth is. She wants to help you, make you feel better — make you feel _good_, because she thinks everybody deserves that.

Daryl’s never thought like that. But he’s gotta admit, it must be a nice way of thinkin’, if it’s coming from somebody like Beth.

“Quit it,” she mumbles, not because she’s annoyed, he don’t think, just ‘cause the words are muffled by the pillow.

“Quit what?”

She flexes her wrist in his hand._ “That.”_

“Hm.” He stops, but his grip lingers there.

“I’m fine, y’know,” she says after another moment, like she’s reassuring him. “I’m alright. I mean, I’m not gonna do it again, so you don’t gotta look at me like that.”

“‘S dark,” Daryl states the obvious. “Dunno how I’m lookin’ at you.”

“Me either,” Beth admits, “but I don’t think I like it, so knock it off.”

And she accused _him_ of needing to be in charge. It’s enough to make him laugh, too, just a sharp exhale through his nose. “Fuckin’ bossy, aincha?”

“Yeah. Got a problem?”

“Nah, Greene.” He breathes out sharp again, but it’s not ‘cause he thinks it’s funny this time. “Y’ can boss me around anytime you want.”

“You gonna listen to me when I do?”

“Sometimes.” All the time, who the hell’s he tryna kid here? “Depends what y’ want.”

She hums, snuggles deeper into the blanket and closer to him. His hand bites into her waist, and the one around her wrist starts moving again, feather-light touches across her skin. Not to keep her there, not if that’s not what she wants, but just to make sure she’s there at all.

“Right now,” she says, the words laced with sleep, “I just want you to be my platypus.”

“The fuck’s that even mean?”

“Jus’ keep your hand on me and shut up, that’s what it means.”

Maybe _he’s_ the slap-happy one, Daryl considers as he gives her a squeeze. Maybe because it’s dark and it’s late and she keeps getting closer, maybe for just a minute here it all feels like it’s gonna be good.

“What happened to all them sweet manners’a y’rs?” he wants to know, just like he wants to know what she’s feelin’ when his breath hits her cheek.

“They went to bed before three o’clock in the mornin’.” Slowly, tentatively, like she thinks he might pull back, she curls her fingers over his, so he’s not holding her wrist so much as they're holding hands. “I’ll be nice to you when I wake up.”

“Hm,” Daryl snorts again, before he buries his nose into her hair, before her body relaxes into his.

He doesn't know about that — about _I’ll be nice to you when I wake up_ — ‘cause this… well. He presses his thumb into the center of her palm, massages it gently, and he thinks this is pretty nice as is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: okay before y’all start yelling at me ‘cause you’re too Thirsty for my bullshit, imma stop you right there and —
> 
> *turns around and walks briskly away. some might even call it a sprint*


	9. oh-oh-oh, i’m on fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: a shorter chapter compared to the 5-7ks i’ve somehow been bustin’ out (????), but
> 
> _BUT._

His pillows smell like her, just like he knew they would, but it’s not the tickle of some sweet-smelling flower in his nose that wakes Daryl up. He’s almost used to that smell by now — _almost_, ‘cause it still makes his heart lurch — and he’d settled into it, easy as he’d fallen asleep. A dreamless one, too, probably because he didn’t need to imagine having Beth with him since she was already there, and his body must’ve caught onto that, that the thing it wanted so much was right there. Can’t remember the last time he slept so well. If that was Beth’s doin’, he’s never gonna wash those sheets again.

But that’s not what wakes him up. No, that’s the coffee comin’ from the kitchen, and the fact that he’s alone.

One hand stretches across the mattress where she’d been, while the other fumbles for his phone. He’d set the alarm for noon, and the clock’s just about to tick over when he switches it off.

He takes another minute, though, to roll over onto the side of the bed that had been Beth’s, and he inhales the scent of her shampoo from his pillowcase ‘cause he’s a fuckin’ pussy for this girl.

Voices filter in from down the hall, disrupting his bullshit. Beth and Merle. _Fuck off_, Daryl hopes they haven’t been up all that long without him runnin’ interference. They got along alright, sure, but one wrong word from either of ‘em would knock it all down.

He doesn’t stop to switch out his day-old clothes, just pushes himself out of bed and shuffles down the hall, following the sounds of the pair’a them sniping at each other.

“Ya real fuckin’ nosy, girlie.”

“Y’all made so much noise, don’t gotta be _nosy_ to know about it. Least you can do is answer my question.”

Daryl stops in the doorway, leans against it. Merle’s at the other end of the kitchen, lounging against the counter that separates the small space from the living room, slurping coffee and rolling his eyes.

Beth’s curled up in a chair at the table, one bare leg folded underneath her while her injured one dangles, toes grazing the cool tile floor, shirt tucked in around her so she’s not flashing those blue panties Daryl got a look at last night. She hitches up one of the arm holes, but it falls back where it was and now he’s thinking about licking a stripe along the band of her bra.

She’s got her bracelets back on. He thinks about nudging those plastic beads aside and putting his mouth there, too, so he can taste the thrumming beat of her pulse.

“Daryl,” Merle barks, brandishing his mug, “tell ya li’l woman here to mind her damn business.”

“That’s no way to talk to someone who made your coffee.” Beth’s gaze slides on over to Daryl and she says, all innocent-like, “I’m just askin’ about the lady he had over.”

Daryl feels his eye twitch. “What more could ya wanna know?”

“If he likes her, or if he’s gonna see her again.”

That makes Merle guffaw, so that coffee dribbles outta his mouth. Daryl gives him a look before he turns back to Beth, tells her, “Merle ain’t really that type.”

“Nosiree.”

Beth frowns. “Well, that’s not very romantic.”

‘Course she’d think that way. She said straight to his face, at Morgan and Jenny’s, that she wants to fall in love. She wanted to know if he did, too. He’s never had occasion to so much as think about it before, let alone actually feel that way. Then Beth came along, and… And he don’t know _what_, but it’s somethin’ and he’s starting to think that it’s a capital-S kinda Something, too.

Daryl moves further into the kitchen, drags a hand along Beth’s shoulder when he passes her on his way to the coffee pot on the counter.

“I look like goddamn Romeo or summat t’ya?” Merle snorts, like he still thinks it’s funny. “Jesus, blondie, Daryl here’s gotcha spoiled rotten an’ I bet ya haven’ even thanked him for it.”

Beth hums into her cup. “You got a real funny way of talkin’, if you think that’s a proper way of speakin’ to a lady.”

“Betcha let my little brother talk to ya all sorts’a ways.” He leers at Daryl, waggles his pale eyebrows. “What about it, eh? Ya tell her ta call ya daddy yet?”

Daryl whacks him upside the head. Wishes he had something heavy to do it with, like if he’d been drinking from the milk carton or if he had a brick laying around, but his hand’s gonna have to do the trick. It shuts him up for a second, in any case, and as always Daryl’ll take all the small victories he can get where his brother’s concerned.

He’ll take anything, actually, so long as the thought at the forefront of his mind isn’t some fantasy where Beth’s calling him — _jack shit_, he decides, because he’s not gonna think about what Merle just said, no way.

It’s a good few minutes, a whole mug of coffee, before Daryl can bring himself to look at Beth again. She and Merle had continued to poke and prod at each other, like a couple of bickering siblings, ‘til Merle said he was tuckered out after last night and he was goin’ back to bed.

“Nothin’ like a good lay to get ya ta sleep,” he remarks, whistling as he heads back to his bedroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

Daryl’s not so sure about that. He slept just fine last night, and that was just ‘cause Beth was holding his hand.

That’s not some sappy shit he’s about to say out loud, though, hell no if his brother’s within fifty feet of him, because Merle would sniff that out real quick. So Daryl just huffs and says, “Sorry ‘bout him.”

Beth shrugs one shoulder. “He’s not so bad.”

“Uh-huh.” Daryl shakes his head, then jerks his chin in her direction. “How’s that ankle?”

“Better.” She smiles as she rolls it around in midair, the muscles in her leg flexing so that Daryl has to blink a few times to get back his bearings. “Feels real good. I can walk on it and everythin’.”

“Glad y’ took them painkillers now, huh?”

“Oh, shut up.” She hops up from her seat, nimble as ever. He watches his shirt sway around her slight body and is starting to second-guess wantin’ it back. “Here, gimme those mugs, I’ll wash up.”

“The fuck?” Daryl shoves his cup and Merle’s out of her reach. “The hell you will, girl, I got a dishwasher. Don’t need no maid.”

“Well, I’m the one who got ‘em dirty, I made the coffee, so —”

“So y’ don’t gotta be cleanin’ up, too.” He plucks her own mug from her hand, holds it high above his head when she tries to make a grab for it. “Get the hell outta here, go get dressed.”

Beth mumbles something about how bossy he is again, but she dutifully complies and he thinks about teasing her another time around, calling her a _good girl _— _thinks_ about it, but doesn’t, ‘cause now Merle’s in his head and it’s a wonder Daryl feels safe enough to open his mouth at all.

He’s got the mugs rinsed out by the time she’s back, dressed in last night’s clothes and lookin’ just as pretty as she did when he first saw her in the bar. Her hair’s up a little tighter, a little neater, jacket slung over her shoulder ‘cause it’s too hot out to wear it today, and she’s in her bare feet, boots tucked underneath her arm.

“I’m not sayin’ you’re right,” she lets him know. “My shoes aren’t _stupid_, I’m just not takin’ any chances.”

“Uh-huh,” Daryl says again, kinda smug this time. He shoves his keys into his pocket. “Let’s get outta here ‘fore your sister figures out you ain’t at Amy’s.”

“How would she figure that out?”

“I’unno, she —” He stops before he can finish that thought, but Beth’s caught onto him.

“What,” she presses, grinning like a loon, “you scared’a Maggie or somethin’?”

“Ain’t _scared_,” Daryl grumbles, but he doesn’t offer an alternative explanation because actually, yeah, he _is_, and he thinks that’s plenty fair.

She doesn’t laugh at him. He thinks she wants to, but she’s keeping that shit to herself and he’s grateful for it. He feels stupid enough around Beth as it is. Maybe she recognizes that, or maybe it’s just that she’s not in the business of makin’ anybody feel dumb. Either way… Well, it ain’t like he needs another reason for his chest to feel all tight when she’s around, but there it is, anyway.

The drive to the farm’s quiet, as far as their drives go. They’re both tired, trading yawns over the quiet hum of the music Beth plays and the whip of the summer breeze through the cracked-open windows. Same as always, but not, really, because this is the _after_ — after he held her all damn night, after the curl of her fingers between his.

There’s something restless stewing deep in his gut, that pull to touch her, to tell her, to do something after spending so much time thinking and driving himself halfway to crazy over it.

He needs a goddamn cigarette. He doesn’t have one handy, but god knows he’s gonna chain-smoke the pack that’s in his dresser soon as he gets back to the apartment. Hell, he’ll probably stop off at the gas station on the way and just get a new one. Make it easier on him.

When he pulls into the dirt drive that leads to the farmhouse, the sun’s still high, peeking through the clouds, and the place is quiet. No other cars are parked nearby, so Hershel and Maggie must be in town. Better for him, Daryl thinks as he watches Beth unclip her seatbelt.

“Thanks for everything. I had a good time, um.” She cocks her head thoughtfully, like she’s considering Gorman and her swollen ankle. “You know, excepting a couple’a things, but… y’know.”

“Yeah.” He _knows_, that’s for sure. What he’d _like_ to know is how he could ask her to do it — something like it, anyway — again.

“But, um.” She hesitates some more, rubs the pink spot he can see forming on her cheek. “Sorry if I spoiled your night.”

Daryl frowns. What the fuck’s this about? She’s the one who ended it on a half-assed ankle, and she thinks _he_ had a lousy time? The night was shaping up to be a lost cause before she came along and saved it.

He’s about to ask what she means when Beth answers without him needing to.

“Just. I dunno. Talkin’ to Merle…” She nibbles at her lip and her cheeks bloom even pinker. “Maybe I ruined your plans.”

He doesn’t like where this is going. “The fuck’s that mean?”

“Well, if you — y’know, if you wanted to — to _do that_,” Beth continues haltingly, like she don’t know how to say it but she’s determined to figure it out, “and then you were stuck takin’ care’a me instead —”

“Do _what_?”

“Meet somebody.”

Daryl’s lost count of how many times Beth’s made him go near brain-dead — had never really kept count to begin with, because he always knew he’d never be able to keep up — but this, this is something else. It doesn’t make him feel like an idiot, it just makes his jaw clench and his hands twitch because what the goddamn _hell_ is she on about?

“What the fuck, Beth?” His hand tightens on the steering wheel so he won’t gnaw his thumbnail down to the bloody tip. “That what you think’a me?”

“It’s not a bad thing.” She’s reassuring him now, like she really thinks that’s what he’d been after at the bar last night. “I ain’t judgin’ you, if that’s what it was.”

“That what you were doin’ there?”

He doesn’t know why he asks, because he knows that ain’t it. She told him she didn’t wanna date Zach, for chrissakes, because she didn’t think he was serious about it. Daryl can’t speak for the kid, no, but if that’s how Beth feels about Zach, then sure as shit she ain’t bar-hoppin’ just so she can get off with no random guy.

But now the thought’s in his head and it doesn’t make any real sense, but the suggestion’s got this feeling unfurling in his chest, twisting up hard and painful, and he wants to hit something.

“No,” Beth says, just as forcefully as he wants to dispel her of that notion, too. “I told you what I was doin’ there. I don’t” — she snaps one of her bracelets against her wrist, agitated — “I’m not tryna meet anybody.”

“What makes you think I am?” he wants to know, _really_ wants to know, even as he asks the windshield because he doesn’t want her to see the flash of hurt in his eyes.

‘Cause he ain’t like that and he’s pretty sure she knows that by now, so why’s she acting like she doesn’t know him at all?

“I’m not accusin’ you of anything,” she reiterates, still agitated, but he doesn’t know if it’s aimed at him or herself. Doesn’t even know which way his own feelings are blowing, so how could he know anything about hers? “God, Daryl, all I did was say sorry if I —”

“Don’t need to fuckin’ apologize,” he snaps, or growls, or something that might indicate that he can’t fucking have this conversation with her. “Wouldn’t’ve done shit for you if I didn’t wanna.”

He’s pissed. Or upset, or confused, or maybe all of the above. This all got away from him so fast, and now he’s scrambling to salvage it without knowing how, and that just pisses him off more. How can she not know that he wants her? Why hasn’t he just fuckin’ _told her_? Why is he still doing all this bullshit, when it’d be easier to tell her and then he could deal with the fallout, whatever it is?

There’s a beat of silence, not even that much, before Beth all but bursts out, “Well, why _do_ you wanna?”

His hand flexes again. He keeps his eyes on it when he grumbles, “Don’t ask me stupid shit, girl, Jesus.”

“You wanna talk stupid? _This_ is stupid.”

“The hell’re you —”

But before he can finish asking her what, exactly, the hell she’s talking about, Beth stops him. She’s slid across the seat, her hand’s hooked underneath his jaw, she leans up to meet him — and she catches the words before they can tip off his tongue because outta nowhere her mouth’s on his, and he chokes back every word, every damn breath, that’s ever almost left him, ‘cause all they’re doing now is gettin’ in his goddamn way.

Jesus Christ, she’s kissing him.

And he’s kissing her back. He doesn’t freeze or seize up or hesitate, the way he does when anybody so much as touches him when he’s not expecting it. Like he’s been expecting this, waiting for it, so he just sinks right into it and kisses her back like it’s all he’s been doing since the thought first crossed his mind.

When her tongue swipes the seam of his lips, they part on command to taste her deeper, to take in every coffee-stained breath that tumbles from her mouth into his. He inhales sharply and she moans softly in response. A low, rumbling groan rises up from his chest where that terrible ache had been, that hurt she eased soon as she pressed her mouth to his in a frenzy of impatience, of _I’ve-had-enough_, of _fucking finally_.

Had she been waiting for this as long as him? ‘Cause god damn, but he’s gonna make that up to her now.

Before he can make good on that, Beth pulls back. Her eyes are shimmering dark when she blinks them open, cheeks pink like they’d been all last night, like they’d been almost all day since. Like she’s warm and a little nervous, like it’s _him_ who’s done that to her. She presses her lips together like she’s trying not to smile or like she’s chasing whatever taste he left on her mouth.

So’s Daryl, too, when he licks his lips and gets the barest hint of her sweat, of cherry lip balm, and something — something else, something _better_ — twists in his gut all over again, because he wants more.

He’s never wanted more before. Never wanted anything like that ‘til Beth. He’s known it for ages by now, but this is different, ‘cause now she’s gone and kissed him and he’s gone and kissed her, too.

“I —” Her voice cracks. It’s just one word, barely that, and it _cracks_.

“Nah.” He’s only got that one word, too, and it scratches its way out of his throat. He shakes his head, but his hand doesn’t tremble when he touches her cheek, when it slides through her hair, when it tugs her back to him so he can slot his lips along hers, to take them right back into it.

If anybody asked, he couldn’t say what comes over him — _wouldn’t_ say, besides, because it’s nobody’s goddamn business — but he needs to tell her, ‘cause she’d had that look in her eye like she didn’t know, like she’s the one who messed up somehow. He doesn’t want that, doesn’t wanna make her unsure for no damn good reason.

So now it’s him who pulls away, not far, not even far enough to take his mouth off her entirely. Their lips brush when he talks, when he tells her, all gruff and hoarse and pleading for her to just fucking _get it_ already —

“Don’t want anybody else. Hear me?” His thumb rubs gently against her temple. “Get that stupid shit outta your head now, alrigh’?”

She nods, a rushed thing that makes their noses bump together. “Yeah — yeah,” she says, breathless and sure and she believes him, so he goes along with it when her fingers are in his hair and she’s kissing him again.

He presses her back against the seat, angles his body towards her so that he’s all but covering her up, blanketing her small frame with his much larger one, so that he can envelop her the way he always feels like she’s surrounding him.

‘Cause, fuck, she’s everywhere, all the time — in his head, in his face, sitting next to him on this bench seat, smiling at him that way that gets her eyes to shinin’, and he never knew he could do that to somebody before Beth came along.

His hand drops to the top of her leg, thumb pressed to the crease of it beneath her shorts. There’s two freckles there, just a little above her knee, otherwise her skin is pale against his rough, sun-tanned hand. He doesn’t have to look to know those freckles are there — he’s seen ‘em before, wanted to touch them and now he is, as his hand tracks a path up and down her thigh.

Her back arches in response, her arm winds around his neck and she drags him in closer, so that he can feel every line of her body, every curve, as it moves against him. Her tongue moves in time with his, with the pattern his hand’s tracing as he moves it up her leg, as it catches in the hem of her tank top and his fingertips push into her bare skin, all hot and soft, her abdominal muscles clenching when he scrapes blunt nails over them.

“_Jesus_, Daryl,” she breathes out hard when the kiss breaks, both of them panting, and he buries his face in her neck because he can’t stop kissing her now, don’t matter where so long as she lets him keep his mouth on her. “Where’d you learn to kiss like that, huh, _jeez_ —”

Might as well’ve learned it from thinking so much about doing it with her. He mumbles something along those lines, but the words are muffled as he sucks at the skin behind her ear and he doesn't know if she picks any of it up. She moans again, though, digs those neon green fingernails into the back of his neck, so he figures what he said’s not important when she’s too distracted by his swollen lips on her throat.

The hand at her stomach pushes up higher, over her shirt now as he palms her tits because, _fuck_, this is really happening now and he doesn’t know how to take it slow. It’s been too long wanting her, he’s too wound-up and he’s damn near snapped.

Beth’s not complaining, otherwise he’d stop, but she’s running her hands down his chest, too, mouth seeking his as he tastes the slope of her jaw. She catches him in the middle, on his way from her right ear to her left, and he figures he’d best stick to her lips, anyway, because one hickey’s enough for her to cover up.

“This alrigh’?” he murmurs into her mouth, when he squeezes her breast and, damn it, his dick goes hard when she moans, this high sweet sound, and curls her fingers tight into his hair.

“_Mmmm_-huh,” she breathes. She licks into his mouth and he wants to thrust his hips against hers, wants to grind against her cunt, the way she’s thrusting her tongue, wants to show her what she’s gone and goddamn done to him. “Don’t stop, okay, please —”

He wouldn’t, not if he could help it, but it’s well out of his eager hands when he hears the crunch of gravel comin’ up from the road.

“Fuck.” Daryl breaks it off, just in time to catch a look through the back windshield over Beth’s head, sees another pick-up creeping up the drive.

She takes a few deep breaths, eyes following his as the car makes its way towards one of the barns. “S’just Otis. Must’ve gone out for more pig feed or somethin’.”

“Yeah, well, Otis’d shoot me, too,” Daryl says, “‘f he catches me with my hand up y’r damn shirt.”

With that, he drops his hand and scoots away. Again, not far, but enough to keep anyone from asking what he was doing sittin’ so close to Beth in the first place.

“Wasn’t really _up_ my shirt,” she points out. “Just over it.”

He can’t fucking breathe, but somehow that makes him huff a laugh, even though the thought should scare him straight. “Yeah, I’ll explain the dif’rence to your daddy.”

That makes Beth giggle, too, still breathless and sorta nervous, but her eyes are bright and her lips are _so_ fuckin’ pink now, Daryl can’t help it when his eyes drop and he licks the taste of her off his mouth.

“Don’t go lookin’ at me like that now,” she insists as she straightens her shirt. “Or I’m gonna go an’ jump on you again.”

Daryl shrugs. “Wouldn’ mind.”

“Thought you didn’t wanna get shot?”

Right. That. He’d just said it but, lookin’ at her, he’d already forgotten.

“Guess not,” he agrees. His eyes flick out the window, but Otis parked in the barn and he’s nowhere in sight, so Daryl’s got another minute alone with her. He nudges her arm. “C’mere a sec.”

Beth’s got her hands full with her boots and jacket, but he can still sneak another kiss on her, easy. It’s slow and sweet this time, soft. He’s gotta make it quick but his lips tingle where hers had been, so it feels like it goes on a lot longer than it does.

She looks a little dazed, and he’d bet he does, too — probably like someone’s hit him up the side of the head with a blunt object, and that’s sorta what it’s like, what with his brain all scrambled the way it is. Pretty sure it short-circuited when Beth told him this was stupid and then proceeded to suck every last breath outta his lungs.

He swipes his thumb up her cheekbone. “Y’good?”

“_Oh_, yeah.” Beth’s smile is wide, and sweet as it felt when she was kissin’ him. She glances out the window again, sighs. “I should go. But I’ll see you?”

Like she really needs to ask, ‘specially after all that.

Daryl tugs on her ponytail, mussed some where his fingers carded through it a couple of minutes ago. “Yeah, girl, y’ will.”

He watches her slide out of the truck, as she picks her way carefully up to the wide front porch, mindful of her bare feet and tender ankle. When she hops up to the top step, she waves at him over her shoulder. Her hair catches on the breeze and he knows she’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, and even still she’d let him kiss her. 

Fuck, _she’d_ kissed _him_.

That’s gonna take some time to get over. Daryl’s not betting that he ever actually will, at least not before he gets the chance to do it again.

He lifts two fingers off the steering wheel in acknowledgement, and when she grins at him, even from a distance he thinks she must’ve seen the way the corners of his mouth quirk up, too.

God damn, but he’s in some kinda trouble here. 

_Oh fuckin’ well._ He wipes a hand over his mouth, licks his lips again and finds that he can still taste her there. With that in mind, well, trouble might not be so bad, after all.


	10. maybe you better tell her how you’re feelin’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so i have like a thousand excuses as to why this update took so long, but mostly i’m just sorry that it did. BUT HEY the next chapter is comin’ in hot, okay, and it’ll be a better apology than i could hope to articulate in an author’s note, anyway. *excessive eyes emoji* 
> 
> in other news, make sure you head over to UBFL’s page to nominate your fave fics/authors for the 2019 moonshine awards!! i’d like to make a special plug for gus’ work, bc first of all she’s perfect in every way, and second of all i’m trying to, like, sabotage her into loving herself. ours is a marriage of Dastardly Plots and Emotional Support. 
> 
> so! happy reading, happy voting, happy i might be getting over this creative rut at last!

Alright. So. Just to take stock of how things’ve been going lately —

Beth kissed him.

So. Yeah. That’s it. That’s _things_, and they’ve been goin’ pretty good.

That can’t be all, though. Right? There’s gotta be more to it, some kinda stipulation or _but_ or something else he’s missing that’s gonna go and pull the rug out from under his feet. Gotta be, ‘cause ain’t nothin’ this good just happens to him.

Or — okay. Daryl snaps his fingers, restless, agitated, trying not to chew his nails down to the quick like he’s usually on the brink of doing. He’s about to walk a hole through his damn floor, but _okay_.

Life’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, and it’s a right side better than it’s ever been before, but this is different. This isn’t just _alright_, this isn’t just gettin’ by — it’s gettin’ what he wants, and Beth’s way too good a thing to just happen to him without any ulterior motive.

Not that she’d have an ulterior motive, nah, no way. What else could the likes’a Beth want with the likes’a him? He ain’t got nothin’ to give her, and she’s not the type to go after folks like that, besides. If she wants to be around him, then that’s all on him, no matter how hard that is for him to believe.

It’s just.

He wants her so bad, it’s like an ache in his chest he can’t get rid of — an ache he don’t even _want_ to get rid of, no matter how bad it hurts ‘cause, yeah, it hurts to want her, to look at her, but _Beth’s_ never made him hurt. It’s not her, it’s just the reality of the thing, that he’d never get to have her and he couldn't even think about it, but here they are and it’s lookin’ like she wants him, too, and that’s just too much to wrap his head around.

It makes him… happy, that she wants him. And happy’s just not a thing he’s used to.

Jesus. He rolls his eyes, impatient with himself. What’s he doin’, living in some kinda damn romance novel? He’s gonna have to talk about this with someone.

Beth’s the obvious choice — he’s not stupid — except he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing, of fucking this up because he hasn’t sorted his thoughts out yet, because he doesn’t know how, damn, he’s never thought anything like this before. He _will_ talk to her, sure enough — fuckin’ hates talking, but he can’t avoid it now, this was comin’ sooner or later and now here it is, he’s gonna have to face it — but he needs to walk through his damn stupid brain with somebody else first.

Hershel’s always tryna have some come-to-Jesus talk or other, but like hell is Daryl about to tell the man he went and made out with his daughter, fuck no. Thought shouldn’t’ve even crossed his mind.

He can’t talk to Merle about it, either. After he caught Beth sleeping over in Daryl’s shirt, well, Merle already thinks there’s something going on. And there _is_ something now, it’s just not what he thinks, but it’s not like he’d give his brother the chance to explain. Too busy givin’ him shit to have an actual talk about anything, and anyway they’ve never talked like that. Merle wants to rag on him, fine, ain’t no stoppin’ him, but if Daryl could even muster up the nerve to talk to him, Merle’d just tell him to quit bein’ a pussy.

Which… Well, maybe he’d be right, but it doesn’t help none.

All things considered, it doesn’t take long for him to end up in Rick’s kitchen, seated at the island with a mug of coffee in front of him.

He doesn’t get down to it right away. Probably would — Daryl’s never been much for beating ‘round the bush, generally speaking — if it weren’t for the fact that Rick’d answered the door in a damn tie, and his kids ain’t nowhere in sight.

Daryl narrows his eyes at him over the rim of his cup, says, “So you gonna tell me what the hell you’re all dressed up f’r, or what?”

Rick fidgets with the thing, but he’s grinning some when he answers, “Got a date.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Shit. Been a long time comin’.”

“You’re tellin’ me. So I got Beth over, she took the kids to the park and she’s got ‘em the rest of the night.” Rick takes a sip from his own mug, shrugs. “Or, y’know, ‘til eight or so, ‘cause Michonne’s got the early shift tomorrow.

“Good thing you stopped by,” he adds before Daryl can so much as process the thought that Beth could walk through the damn door any minute now. “Maybe you could keep her company.”

Okay, so he’s gonna go and be a dick about this again. Go figure, Daryl thinks when he scowls and Rick chuckles.

The prospect of several hours alone — or relatively alone, anyway, but Daryl’s not gonna count a baby and a preteen kid — with Beth is… something. A pulse-accelerating, mouth-dryin’ _something_, and it’s fixin’ to make him all sorts of stupid if he doesn’t hurry up and get to the damn point.

Daryl huffs. “Yeah, uh. That’s actually what I, uh —” He clears his throat, puts down his mug. He can’t stomach anything right now. Might as well get this over with. “Things’ve… happened.”

“Oh?” One of Rick’s eyebrows hikes up, like he’s surprised Daryl’s actually gone and done something about this — _crush_.

Jesus Christ, that’s what it is, isn’t it? Fuck.

“Like…” Rick prompts him, and Daryl snaps himself out of the stupor that stupid fuckin’ word put him into.

He supposes he’d better start from the beginning, but he’s not sure where that is. Never really was sure when all this started, was he? But Rick knows that much, at least, so it’s not like he’s gotta wade back through all that.

Daryl takes another draw of coffee. Can’t stomach the stuff right now, it’s true, but he needs to do something with his hands.

“She kissed me,” he mutters. Good a place to start as any, right, back when he started thinking maybe _she_ was thinkin’ the same things he’d been. “At Morgan and Jenny’s place.”

“She _kissed_ you?”

“On the —” Daryl gestures impatiently at his cheek.

“Where the hell was I?” Rick wants to know, and this time it’s Daryl’s turn to snort and be an asshole about it.

“Too busy spittin’ game at Michonne t’ pay attention.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Rick retorts, though there’s no real heat in it. “Least I know what I’m doing.”

Daryl would like to argue that. He really would. He just... can’t, because he wants to kick his own ass enough as it is. So. He gets it.

But if Rick’s that surprised that Beth kissed him on the _cheek_, Christ, Daryl doesn’t know how he’s gonna get through the rest of it.

He shifts on his stool, drums his fingers against the countertop. “That ain’t all.”

“You’re tellin’ me there’s more than Beth layin’ one on you, and somehow you’re still alive?”

A fair point. Daryl’s still sorta waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Maggie Greene slashes his tires or shows up at his door to hose him down with ice water and an express order to keep away from her sister.

For now, though...

“Not like anybody knows about it, Jesus,” he mutters around his thumbnail. All his fidgeting isn’t helping none, he’s gotta gnaw on something.

“Sure,” Rick concedes, “but I figured you’d’ve had a heart attack by now.”

Daryl flips him off, but he does that so often that Rick hardly notices.

“Come on, man,” he says, laughing again, “you can’t even look at her without a serious spike in heart palpitations, can you?”

“Who th’ hell are you, my damn doctor?” Daryl huffs. “_Heart palpitations_. Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” Rick waves a hand, inviting him to continue. “Go on, what else?”

Okay. Okay, _fine_, he’s come this far, and maybe he _is_ having heart palpitations, but he can work through them.

So Daryl tells him about the car rides and the motorcycle run and all the little in-betweens and, to his credit, Rick doesn’t interrupt him again until he gets to the part about Gorman.

Then, Rick’s mouth twists into a scowl. “Guy really knows how to push his position, I’ll tell you that. You didn’t hit him, did you?”

“Thought about it.”

“Yeah, guess he would’ve arrested you on the spot if you had.” Rick sighs, shakes his head. “I get it, man, I wanna brain the guy, too, ‘specially now.” He rubs his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. “Maybe I’ll make a call about it, dunno if it’d help any or just wind up biting me in the ass.”

Daryl huffs some more. Doesn’t really wanna talk about it anymore, ‘cause all it does is piss him off. “Yeah, well…”

Seems like Rick gets it, because he drops the subject and lets him get on with it. Doesn’t even make any cracks about Beth staying over at his place, or the fact that they made out in his truck like a couple of horny teenagers. Not that Daryl put it like that, but Merle’s voice is hootin’ and hollerin’ in his head like it does sometimes, even when his brother doesn’t know anything about it.

He trails off after that. Ain’t much else left to say, is there? It’s been a couple days and he hasn’t so much as talked to Beth; she hasn’t talked to him, either, so either she’s giving him space or she regrets the whole thing.

And he really fucking does _not_ like the way that second option makes him feel, all nauseaous and uneasy and like he wants to crawl out of his own skin.

He feels it now, but by the looks of it Rick doesn’t share in all his morose bullshit. He's frowning, sure, but it’s more thoughtful than anything else.

“So,” Rick says when it’s clear Daryl’s wiped out, “what’s the problem?”

“I —” Daryl frowns, too. He figured there _was_ a problem, but now that Rick’s asked, he can’t figure out what exactly it is. If he was still just talking to himself, yeah, he’d assume the worst of everything, but now that someone else has asked the question…

Well. Fuck. He’s got nothin’.

That gets Rick grinning, ‘course it goddamn does. He braces his hands on the counter, and gives it to Daryl straight, plain and simple, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Look, sounds to me like you’re overthinking this. It’s like I told you before, it wouldn’t be the worst thing, you and Beth. So if it’s lookin’ like it’s gonna go that way…” He shrugs. “Maybe you should just let it.”

The sound of the front door opening stops Daryl from whatever he was gonna say. Not that he _knew_ what he was gonna say, because he’s still got god damn _nothing_, but footsteps down the hallway, Judith’s giggle, and Carl’s excited chatter all stop him from even trying.

“Carl,” Beth’s saying with the air of someone who’s been saying the same thing all damn day, “I’ll give you whatever your daddy pays me if you don’t make me watch another zombie movie.”

“Beth, I don’t wanna watch a _Sandra Bullock marathon_ —”

A put-upon strangled, dramatic gasp cuts him off. “Bite your tongue, mister.”

“Come on, Beth, this one’s hardly even got any decapitation it.”

“_Hardly_? Ugh. _Miss Congeniality_’s got _no_ decapitation, and there’s an explosion. Somethin’ for both of us.”

“Got kissin’ in it, too, I bet.” Carl blows a raspberry.

Beth sighs. “Y’know, Carl, some people happen to _like_ kissin’, and I — oh.”

They’ve breached the kitchen doorway by then, right when the word _kissin’ _was comin’ outta her mouth, and if he wasn’t already in danger of it before, now absolutely the only thing Daryl can think about is how badly he wants to do that with her again.

His eyes flick up from her scuffed sneakers to her denim shorts, to that slouchy T-shirt that’s showing off her left shoulder. It’s on the sunburned side, and the smattering of freckles across the curve of it’s got darker.

Daryl swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. He ain’t never been much for prayin’ but, Lord, help him.

Her cheeks are pink enough to match the rest of her exposed skin, like she’d been out in the sun too long, except they go pinker when his eyes meet hers. So maybe it’s not just the sun.

That should make him feel good, right? Daryl’s pretty sure it is, only he’s even more sure that, actually, he’s gonna throw up.

He won’t (probably), but it’s gonna take some doin’. Beth gets his head all dizzy and shit, and it’s been a couple days since he kissed her, but _he kissed her_, and how’s he supposed to know what to do next with her standing there lookin’ like that?

The heat’s gone and made her hair frizzy, too; she’s got it twisted into a braid, folded over that sunburned shoulder, but there’s no beating the humidity.

She tugs on it, all nervous-like. He kinda wants to tug on it, too.

Fuck him, _why_ don’t he know any prayers? He’s gonna have to look some up.

Beth’s mouth stretches into a smile. “Hey.”

_Damn it. _Daryl straightens up in his seat. “Hi.”

God damn, but the silence that stretches from there could suffocate him. Probably doesn't last half so long as it feels like, but Daryl’s nerves are shot to hell here, so what the fuck does he know? Beth’s sneakers scuff the squeaky-clean floor and Rick clears his throat, says somethin’ about changing Judith before he heads out, tells Carl to clean up after all the schoolbooks he left strewn across the coffee table in the den.

He claps Daryl on the shoulder, mutters, “You got ten minutes, brother,” and then all at once he’s left alone in the kitchen with Beth.

Christ. Rick works fast. Must be sheriff for a reason.

The ceiling fan whirs sedately, the gentle thrum of it the only sound breaking up the quiet that follows, but, god, one of them’s gonna have to say something, otherwise this ten minutes is gonna run out before Daryl can so much as unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“So, um,” Beth says, and it’s not the most effectual sorta thing, but the weight lifts off Daryl’s chest soon as she starts talking. She takes a breath, and then the few steps it takes to close the distance between them, ‘til the toes of her shoes prod his stool and he can smell the sunscreen on her skin. “Hi.”

“Already said that.” Yeah, asshole, great opening line.

Beth don’t seem to mind it. She rolls her eyes a little, kinda smiles. Toys with the collar of his shirt and tells him, “Yeah, well, I don’t hear you tryin’ out any icebreakers, do I?”

He exhales, short and sharp through his nose, a self-deprecating almost-laugh. “Guess not.”

Her smiles flickers before it falters entirely, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, drops her gaze like she’s studying the shape of his Adam’s apple, or like she can’t look at him straight-on just now. The thought makes Daryl frown, like maybe she really does regret the whole thing and she’s just trying to figure out how to let him down easy.

“Y’alright?”

“Yeah, um. Just…” Beth sighs, kinda frustrated-like. She crosses her arms, props one up on the other so she can chew on a dark blue fingernail, like she’s thinking about what to say, or maybe wishin’ she didn’t have to say anything. Daryl knows that feeling.

He lifts a hand, hesitates for just a second before he wraps his fingers around her wrist to stop her nervous chewing. He knows that feeling, too.

His mouth twitches when her eyes raise to meet his again. “Don’t go pickin’ up my bad habits, now.”

His hand moves up to hold hers, to play with her fingers the way she did his after he took her out on the bike. Looking back on it — and he’s done that _plenty_ — he thinks that maybe she wanted him to kiss her then. He thinks he almost did. Maybe would’ve, if Maggie hadn’t interrupted them, and if he could’ve taken his head outta his own ass long enough to do it.

Too late for that now, but it’s still early enough for everything else. So he swallows down his rabbiting nerves and asks her, “Y’wanna talk?”

Shit, he doesn’t wanna, but he figures they’d probably better. _Knows_ they gotta. He’s talked to someone else about it now — and, damn it, but Rick made a fair few points — so there ain’t nothin’ stopping him.

Beth must see it, how getting out the words is like taking a shot of paint thinner, ‘cause she teases him, “You look real excited about that.”

He huffs, the way he does when she makes him laugh but he’s not about to let her smart ass know it. “Yeah, well. We oughta.”

“Guess so.” Her gaze drops like it did before, lips press together.

“Hey.” He swallows again, so hard it makes his throat click. He’s not sure if the circles he’s rubbing against Beth’s thumb are meant to soothe her or him. “It ain’t a bad thing or nothin’.”

And it’s not, so long as they’re on the same page, but — Jesus, when did he suddenly become the guy who lent the compassionate hand, or what the fuck ever this is? He’s hardly ever needed comfort, let alone be the one to offer it. And now here he is, scrambling to make sure she feels good about this — this _thing_.

Daryl doesn’t even know what to call it, only that he wants it to be good and, well, Beth’s changed all sorts of things since he met her, anyway. This must be another one of ‘em.

“Well, _I_ didn’t think so. But I thought maybe — I dunno.” She blows out an irritated breath, shakes her head like she’s trying to shake whatever thoughts have been bugging her lately. “I got in my head about it for a second and then I couldn’t stop.”

Well, damn, he can relate to that shit, can’t he?

“‘M a real simple guy, Beth,” he tells her. He squeezes her hand, runs his thumb along the back of it. “You ain’t gotta get in your head about it.”

Fuck fuck mother_fuck_, he’s saying too much, isn’t he? He’s either gonna wind up pressuring her or he’s gonna scare her off, maybe both in the long run, if he doesn’t watch himself and just leave her the hell alone. Like he should’ve done from the start, _fuck_, what’s he been thinkin’, he ain’t good enough for her and he never should’ve thought —

“Hey.” It’s just one word, said all soft, but it stops his frantic train of thought in its tracks. “You’re one to talk, y’know. You don’t gotta get in your head about it, either.”

“Who said I was?”

“I can see it all over your face.” Beth’s feee hand comes up to stroke down his jaw, polished nails scraping through his stubble. “You ain’t any better at hidin’ it than I am.”

God, it feels good when she touches him like that.

“Yeah, well…” He sniffs, grumbles, “Ain’t you all fuckin’ clever an’ shit.”

“Jeez” — she laughs, soft and relieved as the sigh that follows it — “I’m glad you’re here.”

He blinks. Several times, like that’s gonna help him think any better. _I’m glad you’re here. _Shit, has anybody ever said that to him before? Ever said anything like it at all? Hell no. Not that he can remember, anyhow, and anyway it strikes him goddamn dumb regardless, ‘cause it’s Beth saying it and he’s got no choice but to believe her. Girl doesn’t lie.

Still, he licks his suddenly bone-dry lips, says “Yeah?” like maybe she’s kiddin’ him here.

“Yeah.” Her smile doesn’t fade out this time. “I’m always happy to see you,”

That shouldn't surprise him — _shouldn't_, ‘cause this girl’s a ball’a goddamn sunshine, but — _but_. His fingers catch on the stack of bracelets on her wrist, and he knows she ain’t always happy. Not like he used to think.

Fuck him, but he’s an idiot.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, rough but the words come clear enough for her to hear. “Me too.”

That gets another smile outta her, wider as it strips itself of all that hesitancy. It flickers at first, like she’s not sure she should, but whatever she decides, that smiles comes out, anyway, like it just can’t be helped.

“Okay.”

That’s it. That’s all she says, and that’s enough for now.

She doesn’t stop there. ‘Course she doesn’t. Girl never quits while she’s ahead but, then again, she’s never managed to push her luck farther than it was ready and rarin’ to go. So that smile quirks up at one corner to turn into that goddamn smirk — that stupid, smartass tilt of her pretty lips that drives him fuckin’ crazy — and she just keeps right on goin’.

“Gave me a hickey, y’know that?”

“Thought I might’ve.” Now there’s a grin tugging at his mouth, just as something else tugs low in his gut. “Can I, uh. Can I see it?”

Fuck, but he don’t know where that came from — this want, a whole fucking _need_, to know that he did something to her that she wanted, that this thing he’s feeling is reciprocated, that what he’s feeling makes _her_ feel good — but, alright, so maybe it’s always been there. He just didn’t let it mean anything ‘til now, ‘til he knew she wanted it to mean something, too.

Pink blooms across her already-pink cheeks, but she still smirks at him when she says, “Alright.” She curls a hand around her braid, twists it outta the way to show off the bruise behind her ear.

It’s a faded, burnished sort of purple. He remembers what she tasted like, all sweet and a little like stale sweat and smoke from the bar the night before she kissed him first. Remembers how good it felt to finally know what it was like, kissin’ her, making her breath catch and her back arch, like she wanted him to mark her up ‘cause she wanted to know that she was his.

Like being with him felt _good_.

He untangles their hands so he can touch the mark with a light fingertip, trace the uneven shape of it. His hand stutters when her breath does, but that little catch in her throat makes him want to hear more of the same.

“‘S not that bad.”

Beth snorts, turns that quirked eyebrow on him like she thinks he’s nuts or somethin’. “Are you kiddin’ me?”

“Nah. Think maybe I should…”

He lets the thought trail off. Ain’t no good with words and, anyway, better to show her what he means, right?

He drops his hand as he leans in, presses his lips to that spot on her neck. Slow, testing the waters, but when she doesn’t push him off and smack him upside the head, he figures she likes it, so he latches his mouth a little more firmly and sucks on that spot some more. He wants to make it darker — not just some faded-out memory, but something constant, something he’ll always be willing to give her ‘cause, fuck, but does he want her bad.

If she’s gonna get in her head about it, this is what he wants her to remember.

“Daryl…” His own name breaks against his neck, shattered all over his skin in one hitched moan that’s all Beth — singsong voice, hot breath, she smells like some kinda sweet candy and the lingering aftereffects of that morning’s toothpaste.

It’s all sugar, and he kisses her harder because he can’t fuckin’ stand not to.

She doesn’t taste like smoke like she did the last time, no, it’s all dried sweat and sunscreen, salt and artificial coconut. He bets her mouth tastes sweet, maybe like the too-much sugar she put in her coffee the morning after she slept in his bed, but he’s too preoccupied to find out for sure.

Too busy with the sharp angle of her neck, the way her chest hitches when he wraps a hand around her hip and yanks her in between his legs and, _shit_, if he brings her in any closer he’s gonna be thrusting his hard-on up into the apex of her thighs in no time, but even still he can’t bring himself to stop.

One of her arms curls around his shoulders, and her other hand’s wrapped up in his shirt collar like it’d been when she teased him earlier. Ain’t no _teasing_ about it now, the way her fingernails nip into his skin, the way she’s breathing hot and heavy in his ear, whimpering when he groans into her skin. Fuckin’ god _damn it_, but everything about this girl is so fucking sweet, it’s gonna drive him nuts if it hasn’t already.

He licks a stripe up her neck, breathes hard through his nose when she shudders and presses closer, when he sucks harder, lapping up the taste of her like some mangy overgrown cat with a bowl of cream. She’s gonna be covered in some kinda obscene polka-dots by the time he’s through with her, and then he’s just gonna wanna do it all over again.

But he thinks that maybe she’ll let him, and hell if that don’t make him pull her in close as he can get her.

He swipes his thumb underneath the hem of her shirt to trace her hip bone, her skin hot to the touch. So soft and warm and he’s gotta wonder if every inch of her feels the same, if _he’s_ the one making her feel this way. 

Thinks he might be, because when he dips just below her waistband, when he rubs the callused pad of his thumb across the cotton band of her underwear, her fingers tighten in his collar and that ball of needy desperation tightens in his gut.

“Beth, fuck,” he mutters behind her ear, the words lost in the humid waves of her mussed hair. There’s an ache in his chest, this throbbing sorta thing radiating from the mad pounding of his heart all the way down to his half-hard dick. It trembles in his ribcage when Beth’s hand drags down his front. 

He grips her tighter. “I wanna —”

Whatever he was about to say — _I wanna take you home, I wanna be alone with you, I wanna keep going ‘til you tell me to stop_, he don’t know what, but any of those might’ve been it — is cut short by Judith’s peal of laughter from the other room, followed by Carl’s shout from upstairs.

“Hey, Beth, I got a quarter! Let’s flip for the movie, I got heads!”

“Don’t listen to ‘im, honey!” Rick yells from the den. “It’s a trick quarter!”

_“Dad!”_

“Jesus Christ.” Daryl curses, pulls back so that he’s not panting all over Beth’s neck anymore. Her skin’s rubbed red from his attention and beard burn, too. Really did a number on her, didn’t he?

He reaches for her braid, arranges it back over her shoulder. “Best keep that covered up.”

“Uh-huh.” Beth swipes a hand over her mouth, like she’s trying to physically catch her breath. Her cheeks are still pink. “Don’t think I got enough hair to hide all that, y’know.”

“Nah.” He can feel the grin pulling insistently at his own mouth, still tingling from the way she tastes. He loosens the braid a little, so that her hair frizzes out some and covers more. “S’alright.”

“More than _alright_, I think,” she says, with that smartass smirk on her face again. Her voice’s on the hoarse side, but truth be told that makes him feel pretty good.

His ears still heat up, though, and he mumbles, “Yeah, okay. So you, uh. You want me to stick around? Give you a ride home later?”

Beth nods, eyes bright. “Yeah, if you wanna.”

“Wouldn’t’ve offered if I didn’t.” Daryl’s hands flex around her hips, fingers digging in. God, he doesn’t wanna let her go, maybe he’s got another minute to kiss her, just one more —

“Daryl!” Rick’s voice bursts outta the hallway. “Ten minutes, man!”

“Shit” — then, louder, he calls back, “Yeah, fine! Christ.”

Beth levels him with a curious look, but he just shakes his head. Like hell is he about to explain that he spilled the beans to Rick right now; he’ll tell her later, in case it pisses her off or somethin’ and she wants to yell at him about it. He doesn’t think she would, but, just in case.

He nudges her back half a step, so that he can get up out of his seat. It’s not _comfortable_, really, but that jerk back into reality did well enough to stave off all the blood rushin’ to the wrong head, so it’s not like he’s in any danger of embarrassing himself anymore. Not ‘cause of his dick, anyway, and that’s about as good as he can hope for.

“C’mon.” He tugs on the hem of her shirt. “You got a kid to bribe. I don’t wanna watch no fuckin’ zombie movie, either.”

“You got more money than me. Better make him an offer he can’t refuse,” Beth suggests. She taps him on the cheek, then spins on her heel and makes her way out of the kitchen before he can retaliate.

“Brat,” he mutters, but she manages to catch that, sticks her tongue out at him over her shoulder and keeps right on walkin’.

Daryl watches her go, staying put where he stands even after she’s disappeared out the kitchen. He ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘til he wipes off the stupid fuckin’ look he knows is on his face, he can feel it like the buzz he gets from good whiskey, and he’s not about to let anybody see him like this.

Well, anybody besides Beth, anyway. But he figures since she’s the one who put it there, she oughta know that she can get him to smile.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Don't Want Anybody Else](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20678405) by [gutsforgarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters)
  * [I Need Love, Love to Ease My Mind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228422) by [gutsforgarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters)
  * [Learning to Love Myself Tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21486232) by [gutsforgarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters)
  * [Like the Sweet Song of a Choir](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21595639) by [gutsforgarters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutsforgarters/pseuds/gutsforgarters)


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